In February 2018, twenty-four members of Uyghur journalist Gulchehra Hoja’s family were arrested by the Chinese state as a direct retaliation for her investigations into Chinese oppression of the Uyghur people. Hoja grew up with her people’s culture and history running through her veins. As a young woman, she became a star presenter on Chinese state television, but then she began to understand what China was doing to her people, as well as her own complicity as a journalist. When her rising fame and growing political awakening coincided, she made it her mission, despite the personal cost, to expose the crimes Beijing continues to commit in the far reaches of its nation.
