"People don’t suffer less because of the identity of the perpetrator. They suffer equally."

Rayhan Asat was born in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, referred to by China, the political entity that governs it, as an autonomous region. Since 2014, the Chinese government has committed a series of ongoing human rights abuses against the Uyghurs - a Turkic Muslim ethnic group in Xinjiang - that have been documented to include mass arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, mass surveillance, cultural and religious persecution, family separation, forced labor and violations of reproductive rights. In August 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report looking at the treatment of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim groups in China which concluded the Chinese government’s actions “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

An international human rights lawyer focusing on atrocity prevention, the rule of law, civil liberties and corporate accountability, Rayhan Asat previously advised the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and is currently a senior legal and policy advisor with the Strategic Litigation Project at the Atlantic Council.