Sayragul Sauytbay
Sayragul Sauytbay | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sauytbay in 2020 | |||||||
| Vice President of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile | |||||||
| Assumed office 12 November 2023 | |||||||
| Preceded by | Abdulahat Nur | ||||||
| Personal details | |||||||
| Born | 1977 (age 48–49) | ||||||
| Spouse | Uali Islam | ||||||
| Children | 2 | ||||||
| Occupation | physician and headteacher | ||||||
| Known for | whistleblower about the persecution of Uyghurs in China | ||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 萨伊拉古尔·索伊特拜 | ||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 薩伊拉古爾·索伊特拜 | ||||||
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| Uyghur name | |||||||
| Uyghur | سايراگٷل ساۋىتباي | ||||||
| Kazakh name | |||||||
| Kazakh | Сайрагүл Сауытбай Sayragül Sawıtbay | ||||||
Sayragul Sauytbay (Kazakh: Сайрагүл Сауытбай; born 1977) is a Kazakh political activist and whistleblower from China. In 2018, she fled China and then told the media about the Xinjiang internment camps resembling modern-day concentration camps where people are "re-educated". She became one of the first victims of these camps in the world to speak publicly about the Chinese repressive campaign against Muslims, igniting a movement against these abuses. Sweden offered her political asylum after Kazakhstan refused, and she subsequently emigrated there.
In March 2020, she received the International Women of Courage Award from the United States Department of State. In March 2021 she was awarded the Internationaler Nürnberger Menschenrechtspreis (the International Human Rights prize of the city of Nuremberg, Germany), for 2021; the prize ceremony was held 15 May 2022.
Also in 2021, she testified among other survivors, as a witness at the Uyghur Tribunal in London.
On 11 November 2023 she was elected as the Vice President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile at the 9th East Turkistan General Assembly in Washington, DC.