From TV star to exiled journalist: Gulchehra Hoja tells Uyghur story

TAIPEI, Taiwan (MNTV) – Before Gulchehra Hoja became one of the world’s best-known Uyghur journalists, she hosted a popular children’s program on Xinjiang Television, making her a trusted personality on Chinese state media. 

Today, she jokes that merely interviewing her could make someone appear suspicious in Beijing’s eyes. “You met me — terrorist,” she laughed before sitting down for an interview with CNA. 

The remark reflects the extraordinary transformation of a journalist who left China’s state media more than two decades ago and went on to help expose genocide against the Uyghurs. 

Reporting for Radio Free Asia’s (RFA) Uyghur Service, Hoja and her colleagues were the first journalists to expose Xinjiang’s mass detention camp system.  

That mission would eventually come at an extraordinary personal cost, forcing her to choose between her family and the work she believed they needed her to continue.

Hoja, now a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said the turning point in her career came around 2000, when she came to a realization about her show for children.

“I fully understood what this program was for,” she recalled. “The Chinese government was using my people’s trust in me … as a propaganda tool to assimilate my own generation. Immediately I felt guilty,” Hoja said. 

For about a year, she struggled with the knowledge that her work had helped promote a policy of assimilation. A short trip to Europe soon exposed her to an uncensored internet for the first time. 

Listening to RFA’s Uyghur Service from abroad, she began comparing its reporting with the work she had done in China and decided she could no longer remain in the state media system. “I felt I was wrong,” she said. “Back home, it had nothing to do with real journalism.” 

She joined RFA in Washington in October 2001, only weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which delayed the issuance of her visa. 

The transition was not immediate. Having experienced both propaganda and independent reporting, Hoja said she gradually came to understand what press freedom meant in practice: “Whenever I have a chance, I will be a voice for the completely voiceless people.”

Hope amid loss

Hoja’s pursuit of independent journalism overseas dealt a heavy blow to her family back home.

Her brother was arrested by Chinese authorities in September 2017, an act she said was directly linked to her reporting for RFA. 

Four months later, on Jan. 31, 2018, authorities detained 24 members of her extended family, bringing the total number of relatives targeted to 25. It was only three days later that Hoja learned what had happened. 

Looking back, Hoja said it was the only time she seriously considered giving up journalism and returning to China, believing that surrendering herself might secure her relatives’ release. “That was the hardest night for me,” she recalled. “I was thinking, should I go back? Surrender myself, then maybe they can release all my relatives.”

The following morning, she told her husband she wanted to return, but her husband urged her to keep fighting. “How do you know the Chinese government is going to release your relatives?” he asked. “We have to fight from here.”

Instead of returning, Hoja appealed publicly for help, testified before the U.S. Congress, and raised awareness internationally.

Most of her relatives have since been released, though she said she can now speak with her parents only briefly once or twice a month under what she believes is constant government surveillance.

Despite the emotional burden, Hoja said journalism serves another purpose beyond documenting abuses. “We also want to give hope to our people,” she said. “The world is paying attention to you. The world knows the situation. Listening to you.” 

That mission is also what sustains her. Hoja said she drew strength from her family’s sacrifices, her Islamic faith, and generations of Uyghurs who have not abandoned their hopes despite decades of repression. “My people never gave up hope,” she said. “I am just continuing their dream.”