A testimony from our “100 Camp Testimonies” Book
I am originally from Khotan, East Turkistan. My home address was house number 169, fourth neighborhood of the fourth village, Khotan. I would like to testify for my husband, my mother, and my younger brother, all of whom have been persecuted by the Chinese regime.
We came to Turkey on January 29, 2016, when I was pregnant with my fifth child. After having found a place to stay and taken care of other important matters, my husband returned to East Turkistan. The main reason for us to immigrate to Turkey was to save our family, including our unborn baby—our fifth child. Due to the strict birth control policies of the Chinese regime, I would have been subjected to forced abortion if I had stayed in East Turkistan.
After we applied for passports back in East Turkistan, three of my children did not get their passports issued, while the rest of us in the family have been issued passports, i.e., my husband and I came to Turkey with only one of our children. Therefore, my husband traveled back to try to bring the rest of our children to Turkey. The passport applications were not approved yet when my baby was due, but my husband came back to Turkey to be by my side when I gave birth. In order to sort out the passports for our other children, he returned to East Turkistan after spending one week or so with me back in August 2016.
Qurbanjan Turdibaqi, my husband, was born on September 21, 1983, who was detained in 2017 for being Uyghur and for having been to Turkey. I later learned that he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sending us money. Our home address back in East Turkistan is No. 61 Gülbagh residential complex, West Beijing Road, Khotan city.
Turdinisa Mattumor, my mother, was born in 1961, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having visited Turkey with her legally issued Chinese passport.
My younger brother came to Turkey to seek medical treatment for one of his arms in March 2017. Just before the planned operation, on March 5, 2017, we received a phone call from my father asking for my brother’s immediate return to Khotan. It was actually around the time when we could not contact our families. My father told my brother that he must return by March 10, 2017, otherwise the Chinese authorities would detain him, i.e., the Chinese regime held my father hostage. My brother had to return home as we all worried about the safety of my father. In 2018, through a friend of mine, I learned that my brother was taken to an internment camp, and later sentenced to 15 years in prison.
I have not been able to obtain any information about my family members, including my mother, brother, my husband, and my three children. My eldest daughter was born in 2008, my second child (son) was born in 2010, and my third child (daughter) was born in 2012. None of my family members has criminal record, and they are all persecuted for being Uyghur and religious. Not even the Chinese law would sentence someone to five or 10 years for having traveled abroad to for example Turkey.
I also have no information about the wellbeing of my elder brother Ablet Muhammadamin and my sister, and I fear that they might have been imprisoned as well. My elder sister’s husband was also charged with some “pre-crime.”
I plead to the international community and the United Nations to put pressure on the Chinese regime so that my innocent family members and relatives would be released. My family is torn apart, and my innocent children are suffering immensely. My five children are unable to see their father and I could not even hear the voices of my three children who remained in East Turkistan, about whom I have not been able to get any information.