Nury Turkel is a lawyer and Uyghur rights advocate based in Washington, DC. He is currently serving as vice chair for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and serves as chairman of the board for the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), which he cofounded in 2003. In September 2020, Turkel was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, and in May 2021, he was named on ’s List of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.