In this preview of a full Zoom In Zoom Out interview, Uyghur-American lawyer Nury Turkel shares how he was reunited with his mother following her release from persecution by China in Xinjiang.
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00:00This whole family suffering started actually when I was born.
00:05My mother delivered me in a re-education camp
00:09during the height of the Cultural Revolution,
00:11and my father was sent to labor camp,
00:14performing agricultural labor,
00:16which is much like what is happening today.
00:19I went to college and then came to the United States.
00:21This was 29 years ago.
00:24So from the time that I left the mainland up until last week,
00:29I was only able to spend 11 months with my late father and my mother,
00:37who brought me to this world under such extraordinary circumstances.
00:42When I was appointed by then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
00:47to serve in a government role,
00:50shortly after my appointment,
00:52there was a message that I shouldn't be serving in the U.S. government,
00:56I should be resigning immediately.
00:59And then late in 2021,
01:02I got sanctioned by Beijing for my work in the U.S. government.
01:08Calculation that sanctioning and continued to mistreat and abuse my parents
01:17actually emboldened me.
01:19And then something else also happened in early 2022,
01:23that I lost my father.
01:25I thought that the Chinese will show some humanity and mercy
01:30to let my widowed mother to go.
01:33And that didn't happen.
01:35I had a chance to meet with President Biden briefly.
01:39I made a case directly to him.
01:41And then I had a chance to speak with National Security Jake Sullivan.
01:46So something remarkable happened.
01:49I really did not expect that President Biden would raise it again with Xi Jinping.
01:54And I still don't have the details,
01:57and it's not really important what happened, what being said.
02:00But what is important is that shortly after the summit,
02:06I started seeing some movement.
02:08I never thought in my life that I would see my mom in such a ceremonial way,
02:13in such a dignified way.
02:15I was notified three days prior to my mom's arrival.
02:19I could not sleep.
02:21I ran upstairs to the third floor to wake up my wife.
02:25And we hugged and weeped.
02:27And then my kids woke up and I told them, told my son,
02:31why I was getting in the middle of the night emotional.
02:35And I said, look, you're going to meet your grandma for the first time soon.
02:39And he gets so emotional.
02:41He said, when was the last time that I saw his grandma?
02:45I said, 20 years ago.
02:47There's a picture right on my shoulder over there from my law school graduation.
02:52That Ed Wong's New York Times piece has a picture of it.
02:55When my son was four years old, he stood there and asked me who they were.
02:59I told him, grandparents.
03:01And the following question is, how come I don't meet them?
03:04What can you say?
03:05He was four years old.
03:07How do you explain?
03:08And that painful abnormality that myself and my family were enduring
03:14was something I could not explain to a four-year-old.
03:17I was on my way to Dulles Airport.
03:19I got a phone call from a DC number.
03:23And on the other side, a diplomat said, somebody wants to talk to you.
03:28And it was mom.