Mamatjan Juma is the founder and Executive Director of Uyghur News Network (UNN), which he started in 2025 after Radio Free Asia shut down its Uyghur Service. He's an editor and media executive who works across several languages. He has spent more than 18 years in international journalism. Before founding UNN, Juma was Deputy Director of RFA's Uyghur Service.

He ran newsroom operations, set editorial standards, and coordinated reporting across languages. He led coverage of China's mass detention camps, forced labor networks, and surveillance systems in the Uyghur region. This reporting helped bring the crisis to global attention. The service's work was cited by The New York Times, the BBC, The Wall Street Journal, Vice, and The Washington Post. It won the 2019 Burke Award for investigation into mass detention and surveillance in Xinjiang. At UNN, Juma leads the newsroom and makes editorial decisions.

He's guided by a strict code of ethics. He reports and edits stories on human rights, forced labor, transnational repression, cultural and religious persecution, diaspora life, and how governments around the world respond. Juma started his career teaching at Xinjiang Art College, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1996. He later completed a Master of Fine Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. He is fluent in Uyghur, English, Mandarin Chinese, and Uzbek.

Mamatjan's project at the Reuters Institute explores the importance of governance and leadership for durable independent journalism.