Jason Jones & Salih Hudayar

Jason Jones & Salih Hudayar < Back to Voices

Jason Jones is a Senior Contributor to The Stream. He is a film producer, author, activist and human rights worker. For the past 20+ years, he has worked to defend the most vulnerable — from the homeless on the streets of Los Angeles to persecuted Christians in Africa, from women in crisis pregnancies to victims of “honor killing” in Iran.

He attended the University of Hawaii, after a tour serving in the U.S. infantry. At University of Hawaii, he founded the Pro-Life Student Union and served as state chairman of Young Americans for Freedom. Jason would go on to serve as director of Hawaii Right to Life, national youth director of the American Life League, grassroots director of Brownback for President and public relations director for the world’s largest international pro-life organization, Human Life International. He has appeared in defense of the most vulnerable members of the human family on ABC, Fox, CNN and hundreds of radio programs nationwide.

Jones is the Founder of HERO [Human-Rights Education and Relief Organization], a non-profit that promotes human dignity regardless of ability, age, status, race or geography. He spearheaded a HERO initiative to bring clean water to suffering refugees in South Sudan. In 2009, despite the government’s warning of unsafe travel, Jason visited Darfur and inspected 26 new water wells and distributed $2 million in food, medicine and other aid. He is currently leading an effort to provide emergency aid to the victims of ISIS in Iraq.

Jones was a producer on the 2006 pro-life film, Bella, which won several film industry awards, most notably the People’s Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

He was the associate producer of the 2008 film on honor killings, The Stoning of Soraya M., which won the NAACP Image Award in 2010 as well as the Los Angeles Film Festival Audience Award in 2009.

His short films include Eyes to See (2010) and Crescendo (2011); Crescendo, whose executive producer was Patti Mallette (mother of Justin Bieber), raised millions of dollars for women and children in crisis pregnancy centers. He was producer in 2012 of the TV movie Mother Marianne: Portrait of a Saint.

Jones lives in Hawaii, with his wife and seven children.

 

Salih Hudayar was elected as the Prime Minister of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile on November 11, 2019.

Mr. Salih Hudayar was born to a Uyghur business family in Atush, East Turkistan. He studied International Studies and Politics at the University of Oklahoma, and was a member of the Army National Guard from 2011-2013. He is currently pursuing a Masters in National Security Studies from the American Military University.

On June 4, 2000, Salih Hudayar, fled to the United States with his family where they became political refugees. He grew up in Oklahoma and despite being so young he began to spread awareness about East Turkistan and the situation there. He moved to Washington, DC in summer 2017 and founded the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement (ETNAM). Under his leadership, the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement sparked a national awakening across the East Turkistani diaspora and re-ignited the flame of independence. He spearheaded the call for restoring East Turkistan’s independence along with calling for the passage of a Uyghur / East Turkistan Policy Act. He reframed the East Turkistan issue as being an issue of territory and independence and not simply human rights and democracy.

He joined the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile at the Special Parliamentary Session in Washington, DC in April 20, 2019 and was subsequently appointed as the Ambassador to the United States & Assistant to the Prime Minister.

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