Ziba Murat: China Is Holding My Uyghur Mother Prisoner. Will President Biden Say Her Name?

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing is well underway. Millions of people will likely tune in to see the spectacle that China has orchestrated—everything from the choreographed pageantry of the Opening Ceremonies to the man-made snow blanketing the ski slopes. China wants the Olympics to project its economic might and global dominance. But for me, the images on the screen will be a bleak reminder of China's oppression and persecution, on a very personal level.

I will witness the Games through my unique perspective as an Uyghur-American, but also as the daughter of Dr. Gulshan Abbas, a Uyghur retired doctor and peaceful public servant who spent decades caring for the members of her community until she suddenly disappeared from her home in Urumqi in 2018.

Since the day she vanished, my mother has been detained by the Chinese government in one of what it calls its "re-education camps." But the world has come to recognize them as 21st century concentration camps.

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