'They took my sister': Uyghur activist says her work led to sibling's detention in China

All her life Rushan Abbas (56), a Uyghur from the mainly Turkic, Muslim northeast of present-day China, has lived with persecution. Her childhood memories, and the family stories she was told about her childhood, involve loved ones being taken away by the authorities. And now, today, she lives with the belief that, because of her activism in the West, her sister, Gulshan Abbas (61), is in detention in China and denied contact with the outside world. Abbas lives in the United States and is a US citizen but was born in the region the Chinese call Xinjiang. A massive 1.6…