A testimony from our “100 Camp Testimonies” Book
I graduated from Jilin University in China in 2011. A year later I married Ahmetjan Talip on March 3, 2012. After we got married, we went to Dubai, UAE. I gave birth to a cute, lovely baby in 2013. My husband worked for a logistics company in the UAE, and we had lived in Dubai for six years, i.e., from 2012 to 2018. I would like to testify for my husband Ahmetjan Talip.
On February 15, 2018, as requested by his brother, he went to a police station in Dubai to ask for some official papers that could indicate that he had no criminal record in the UAE, but he never came back home since that day.
The Dubai police said they had arrested him because he had criminal record in China, and they initiated the deportation process. On February 20, 2018 there was a court hearing, in which the judge said that the Chinese authorities had not provided any evidence indicating that he had criminal record in China. What should have come as the next logical step regarding this incident was that the police should release my husband immediately. However, when I went to the police station (Dubai) to show them the court ruling, I found out that my husband was transferred to another police station in Abu Dhabi.
I went to Abu Dhabi and told the police that they should release my husband as I tried to show them the court release paper. But they did not even look at the court paper, and said, “We will deport him back to China, and if you come again to disturb us, you will also be deported back to China.”
At that time, I was nine months pregnant and my son’s passport would soon expire, so for the sake of our safety I came to Turkey. I thought it was unacceptable that the police could just hold my husband in a detention center in Abu Dhabi after the release paper was issued by the court; besides, they also had the audacity to threaten me with deportation, an act that could never have taken place in a democratic country that has rule of law. I was not able to contact my family back in East Turkistan.
I patiently waited for a piece of positive news, but after one and a half years, I learned that my husband was in prison, probably in one of the internment camps. The Chinese regime did not follow the legal proceedings and my husband was never given a trial. The reason for his detention is still unknown to me. That the regime would go this far to persecute an innocent individual is beyond me. I really worry about my husband, and I do not know if he is alive.
CNN reported about my husband’s deportation as well as other Uyghurs’ deportations at China’s request in three major Arab countries: Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
