Nury Turkel

Nury A. Turkel is an attorney, author, and a leading expert on US-China relations.  He formerly served as Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom after being appointed as a Commissioner by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in May 2020.  He has testified before the US Congress, speaking about Uyghur internment camps and advocating a legislative response to China’s atrocities.  His policy recommendations have been incorporated into US law and pending bills relating to Uyghurs and China.  He is the Board Chairman of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, which he co-founded in 2003. Commissioner Turkel is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, working on US foreign policy and national security issues.  He is a Senior Legal Fellow at Notre Dame Law School.  He has been a Senior Advisor at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy.  Commissioner Turkel is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As a globally recognized opinion leader and policy expert, Commissioner Turkel wrote policy-oriented essays for major publications and provided commentaries on global media programs.  In 2020, he was in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World list, and in 2021, he was listed as one of Fortune’s 50 Greatest Leaders.  In June 2021, he received the inaugural Notre Dame Prize for Religious Liberty.  In September 2022, he was awarded the “Global Soul Award” by Jewish World Watch. He holds a Juris Doctor and a Master of Arts in International Relations degrees from American University.  His memoir “No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs” won the 2023 Moore Prize For Human Rights Writing.