Nury Turkel

Nury Turkel

Nury A. Turkel (pronounced like 'Tur-KEL'; born in 1970) is an Uyghur American attorney, public official and human rights advocate based in Washington, D.C.. Turkel was born in Kashgar, Xinjiang. After his undergraduate graduation in 1995, he moved to the United States. He was president of the Uyghur American Association and is currently serving as the Chairman of the Board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a Washington, D.C.-based project for Uyghur human rights research and documentation. In 2020, Turkel was appointed a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur lawyer and the first Uyghur American to be appointed to a political position in the United States. In 2020, he was included on Time's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

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