What connected the honorees was not ideology, religion, or ethnicity. It was the understanding that freedom is not merely a right; it is a responsibility.
Rushan Abbas receives recognition at the 2025 NED Freedom and Democracy Awards in Washington, highlighting courage against CCP oppression (Photo: File)
WASHINGTON, DC:I attended the 2025 National Endowment for Democracy Freedom and Democracy Service Awards in Washington this week, and left with a renewed understanding of what courage looks like when stripped of theatrics, politics, and public applause. These awards honour those who resist authoritarian power at the greatest personal cost. What we all witnessed was not simply recognition; it was the affirmation of lives reshaped by sacrifice, loss, and moral clarity.
This year's honorees were bound by a common adversary: the totalizing ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Each recipient represented a community under pressure, surveillance, repression, or direct assault. Yet each stood for something the CCP has never been able to extinguish: the human insistence on freedom.
Rushan Abbas, founder of Campaign for Uyghurs, received one of the Democracy Awards. Her courage is not academic, political, or strategic. It is personal. In 2018, shortly after she spoke publicly about mass internment in Xinjiang, her sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, was abducted by the CCP. There was no charge, no hearing, no reason given—only silence. At the ceremony, Rushan spoke not as a victim but as a witness. She reminded us that enforced disappearance is not only a punishment ; it is a message meant to warn others to be quiet. Rushan's work is the refusal to be quiet. For me, it was a great honour to see an Optimum author receive such an incredible recognition for her tireless work and dedication. Humbled to be among so many freedom fighters and defenders of democracy, I realized once again, it is the sum of the parts that makes powerful statements to the oppressors.
Another honoree was the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, abducted at age six and disappeared for 30 years. His absence has become one of the most enduring symbols of Tibet's struggle for spiritual and cultural autonomy. The CCP's attempt to replace him with its own state-appointed figure is not just political interference ; it is an attempt to reengineer the soul of a people. Accepting the award on his behalf, Zeekyab Rinpoche spoke with a presence that filled the room. There was no bitterness in his tone only resolve.
Pastor Wang Yi, imprisoned in China for leading an independent Christian congregation, reminds us that conscience does not negotiate. His writings from prison, smuggled out at great risk, speak of faith, not as belief but as duty—duty to truth above fear, duty to God above the state. His absence on stage was itself a statement: some are honoured while in chains.
Xiao Qiang and his team at China Digital Times were also recognized for ensuring that truth cannot be erased simply because a government demands it. Their work archives what the CCP tries to delete a record of reality in an era where reality is contested territory. Their service ensures that history cannot be rewritten by the powerful.
What connected these honorees was not ideology, religion, or ethnicity. It was the understanding that freedom is not merely a right ; it is a responsibility. Those who accept that responsibility are forced to carry a burden that most of us in democracies rarely confront.
The ceremony was solemn, dignified, and without vanity. We all celebrated the recipients, but no one in that room was truly celebrating. We were witnessing the cost of standing upright when the world is told to bow. The challenge before us particularly those of us in open societies—is not simply to show sympathy. Sympathy is passive. What is required is alignment: diplomatic, economic, intellectual, and moral? It takes leadership in Canada that is not skin-deep or driven simply by current economic necessity driven by our differences south of the border.
Authoritarianism spreads through silence. Courage spreads through example. On Tuesday night, I saw courage and Canada and the world would do well to look directly at it.
Dean Baxendale is Publisher, CEO of the China Democracy Fund and co-author of the upcoming book, Canada Under Siege.
