A testimony from our “100 Camp Testimonies” Book
I was born on August 11, 1978 in Sekkizsomul village, Chapchal County, Ili Prefecture, East Turkistan. On December 9, 2015, Chinese officials from the local birth control office came to our house with the policemen, and threatened us with imprisonment if I refuse to abort my unborn baby; I was six months pregnant at the time. They were determined to kill my six-month-old fetus by means of fetal lethal injection. I refused to comply with their command, and told them that I did not have a job, but my husband was working, and that we could support our family without any government aid. They said that if I chose to keep the baby, they would send my husband to prison.
On the same day, they sent two people over with documents that demanded my abortion. They forced me to go to the Chapchal County hospital, where the doctors gave me some pills for abortion. I took those pills for three days, but they did not work, and I developed acute abdominal pain. I was then transferred to Ghulja City Hospital, where I was given an anesthetic injection, and my hands and legs were tied to the bed. When the anesthetics wore off, I screamed, and I was given another injection. I woke up the next morning and realized that they had performed the abortion. My sister-in-law feared that I might die. It was a baby boy they aborted. We had to pay all the hospital fees, including the abortion fee.
A Han Chinese civil servant came to us and told me that I had to use an intrauterine device (IUD). Doctors checked my body and decided not to proceed with the insertion procedure as my uterus sustained some injury during the abortion. The civil servant still insisted on having the IUD inserted into my uterus. I was so scared, and I knew that there was no way I could get away with not using the IUD, so I complied.
After that tragic forced abortion and forced insertion of IUD, we moved to Ghulja city and started doing retail trade between Kazakhstan and Ghulja, i.e., my husband exported vegetables to Kazakhstan. I sold goods imported from Kazakhstan in Ghulja, e.g., pots.
On November 1, 2017, my husband was detained under suspicion of travelling to Kazakhstan and sent to an internment camp, a “terrorist country” according to our local Chinese authority. The retail markets for goods imported from Kazakhstan were shut down by the local authority, such as Tashlepke and the Kazakh Bazaar in Ghulja. In order to make ends meet, I continued to sell my imported goods in secret. At the time, my eldest daughter graduated from a university in Guangzhou, China, and my other daughter was studying at a junior high school in Chapchal County, while my son was only three years old. I took care of my three children on my own.
In January 2018, several police officers and civil servants came knocking on the door, and handed me a letter issued by the Chapchal County Birth Control Office, which stated that I needed to pay the indicated fine (CN¥17400, roughly US$2731) within the given deadline. The fine was issued because I gave birth to my third child. They warned me, “If you don’t pay the fine within a week, you’ll be sent to a camp (internment camp), and your husband won’t be released from the camp. You should forget about your kids and your family business, and do whatever you can to get the money.”
I cried the whole day, and all my neighbors, who were Uyghurs, came and comforted me. One brought me food, while the other brought me milk, and just like that my neighbors kept me going. Every family had someone who was interned. Within a week, with the help of my neighbors and friends, I scraped together enough money and went to the Birth Control Office to pay for my fine. After having paid the fine and given my signature, they told me that I needed to study at a reeducation camp. I did not understand why I needed to go to the camp since I already paid the fine within the deadline. They insisted that I needed to comply with their order for the sake of my husband. I was told that I had to score 100 points every day, or they would decrease my husband’s social credit score. They also threatened to sentence my husband to prison.
I was left with no other choice but to go to the reeducation center in Sekkizsomul village. I commuted between Ghulja and Sekkizsomul for about a month, going to the reeducation center in Sekkizsomul in the morning and returning to Ghulja in the evening. At the reeducation center, I met women who had university degrees, and their husbands were persecuted by the regime. The forced reeducation lasted a month, during which time I could not take care of my children, and my neighbors helped me take care of my children. After finishing the coercive reeducation, six policemen from so-called Twenty Office in Ghulja stormed my residence, telling me that I had to move out. They accused my husband of being a terrorist and also labeled me as a terrorist suspect. They knew that I was already blacklisted in the government surveillance system and demonstrated by scanning my ID card, which then set off an alarm. They said that I had a record of previous reeducation
The police told me that I must move out of my place in Ghulja within three days. “You must leave no matter what, and we won’t let you live here. You are considered a suspect, and we won’t let you travel outside of Ili Prefecture,” they insisted. From that day on, I was placed under surveillance, i.e., a policeman was parked in front of my residence. My neighbors were just as scared and they started to shun me, only greeting me from afar.
When I was trying to figure out where to find a house in Chapchal in that cold weather, the Chapchal officials found an old house for me. On a bitter cold winter day, I moved into that house with my kids. The house was in bad conditions and it could not keep out the rain, snow, or the cold. There were other Uyghur and Kazakh women living there as well, who were accused of having more than the approved number of children, and their husbands were in the internment camps. Some of their husbands or children were sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison for ridiculous reasons such as praying. I remember a Uyghur woman named Reyhan, who sat next to me in the class and often cried because her husband was sentenced to prison. If I start talking about what I saw there, I could write a few books. My health deteriorated at that time.
In the morning, we would go to the village council building and study there, which was a part of the “reeducation” program. They would take our cell phones upon our arrival. There were surveillance cameras installed everywhere. The women who attended the class were Kazakhs, Uyghurs, and Hui Muslims (a few), whose husbands were sent to the internment camps and their children went to normal schools. One day I said to the officials, “I come to this place every day to study, while my husband is in the internment camp. Our income is gone since no adult in the family is making money, and no one is looking after my children when I’m not around, so tell me how we are supposed to live?” They replied, “It is none of our business. You have to comply with our orders.”
Once my son became ill, with a fever over 40°C, and he was taken to a nearby hospital by my neighbors. The Chinese officials would not care a bit if our children died.
Every Tuesday one of the officials from Chapchal County would come to our village and gather all the Uyghur and Kazakh women. After shutting the doors and windows, he would start cursing at us and bully us, “You are bad people. We told you not to pray, but you continued to pray. If there is a god, then that god should be feeding you. You should believe in the government, not in God.” We listened in silence, only saying to ourselves: “You guys will also die one day.” If we had said anything out loud, we would have been executed.
They ordered us to remove our headscarves, to not wear long dresses, and to not curl our hairs; rather, we should wear jeans, dress like Han Chinese, speak Mandarin, and eat Chinese food. A Han Chinese man and a Han Chinese woman were sent to our house, who stayed with us for a month, surveilling our every move. They observed what we did in our daily lives.
During the class when I thought about my children, I would naturally glance down at the floor, which was considered as suspicious. A voice from the loudspeaker would say, “Why is that person looking down? She has an ideological problem, so make her sit facing the camera.”
I have all the evidence (i.e. official documents) for my forced abortion, for my husband’s internment, and for the unjust fine.
My husband was hospitalized several times before his release from the internment camp, during which time I paid his hospital bills as well as other fees in connection with his internment. He was released on October 16, 2018.
A few officials from Ghulja, Chapchal County, and our village came to our house in the evening of the day I received my passport, and I was preparing to leave for Kazakhstan. They took some pictures, scanned my iris, recorded my voice, and took my fingerprints. One of them sat down and said, “Only you know what happened around here, and after you cross the border, someone may inquire about some things. When that happens, just say you don’t know anything.” I promised that I would comply, or they would not let me go. He continued, “If you speak out against us, we will bring you back from Kazakhstan with a black hood put over your head.”
Subsequently, I spoke out and told the truth after I went to Kazakhstan. They detained my brothers, sister, and brother-in-law, holding them hostage at the village council. My sister-in-law threatened to commit suicide if I kept speaking out against the Chinese regime. I told the truth about my forced abortion, i.e., the Chinese regime killed my six-month-old unborn baby. The regime must be held accountable for the countless crimes it committed and continue to commit.
My brother found out where I lived in Kazakhstan, and told me that the Chinese regime would bring me and my husband back with black hoods over our heads. I told him, “Let them take me if they can, and I am not afraid.” In fact, they were afraid to talk to me for they knew that we would expose their true nature. The Chinese regime like any other dictatorship would retaliate against dissidents like us by hurting their families and relatives and holding them hostage.
I said to my brother, “Were you able to come to our house when we were in Chapchal? You just saw us from afar.” Not a single relative of ours was able to pay us a visit. No one dared as I had a policeman (from dawn to dusk) and a surveillance camera in my house.
There was a woman named Uljat who knew everything about me and was a comfort to me until my husband was released. She had been criticized several times at her workplace for comforting me, a suspect according to the Chinese authority. She knows all my hardship and sufferings.
After my husband’s release, I pleaded with the officials to allow my husband and our eldest daughter to take care of the remaining business in Kazakhstan. I presented myself as a guarantor, willing to be punished if they did not return. I managed to send my eldest daughter and my husband to Kazakhstan. In July 2019, I received a doctor’s notice stating that my husband was ill in Almaty and that he was vomiting blood. I took the notice to the local police and asked for a travel permit.
With the assurance of my relatives, I traveled to Almaty with my two children on November 6, 2019. The police did not allow me to take anything with me. When we arrived at Qorghas border control early in the morning, they let all the other passengers pass, but not us. They confiscated my two handbags and checked other stuff, and held us for several hours. After 12 a.m. they called my village officials and got their confirmation that I was given one-month travel permit. It was 10 p.m. when we arrived in Kazakhstan.
I chose to speak out because I want the whole world to know about the oppression of Kazakhs and Uyghurs. In East Turkistan, minority women like me, or younger than me, are afraid of giving birth and afraid of being punished for giving birth. They would choose to have only one child. Women’s rights to give birth should not concern any government or regime as it is considered a personal liberty.I swear to God that I spoke nothing but the truth. I am prepared to confront the Chinese regime in a court of law with all my evidence.
