A testimony from our “100 Camp Testimonies” Book
I was born in Qoshirik village (Kuoshi’airikexiang 阔什艾日克乡), Yarkent County, Kashgar Prefecture, East Turkistan in 1977. When I was 16 (in 1993), I became a teacher after finishing the middle school with excellent grades. I was in charge of the 5th grade for a year and a half before teaching physical education and Mandarin to all the students at the school. I subsequently quit my job at the school. I then decided to take cooking lessons, trying my best to become a professional chef. My grandfather was the secretary and my father was the imam of a mosque in Yarkent. I was a non-smoker and a well-behaved young man. However, the head of the religious affairs of our village informed against me, so the police came knocking on our door. They often interrogated me and took me to the local police station, which was disturbingly worrisome with respect to our safety. Therefore, I moved to Khotan in 1997. Since I was a chef, I could make a living everywhere.
Two years later, May 1999, I got married in Khotan. I still could not return to my hometown at the time for fear of further persecution; moreover, I had to register myself as a resident in Khotan to avoid being arrested. I opened a small restaurant in Khotan. In 2014, I became seriously ill. I had to apply for a travel permit in order to seek medical treatment in Ürümchi, which involved getting approvals from the local police, from the village council, and from the town council. I also had to get a doctor’s notice.
I left for Ürümchi in September 2014. In November, I was told that the Chinese regime issued an arrest warrant against me. The regime’s mass internment drive already started at the time, so it was terrifying to learn about my arrest warrant; the situation was very tense for all Uyghurs. I heard stories of how innocent people were being arrested and sentenced to prison, among whom were businessmen, intellectuals, scholars, and patriotic (with allegiance to East Turkistan) young men. Many Uyghurs were arrested, tortured, and sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison for ridiculous charges. China does not have the rule of law, where the regime carries out arbitrary arrests and detentions. Therefore, I wanted to flee, but I had no chance of escaping as all of East Turkistan was under China’s rule. It was extremely difficult to travel to inner China or abroad.
I knew I was innocent for I did not commit any crime, so I voluntarily turned myself in to the police on November 20, 2014. Two police officers took me from Ürümchi to Khotan. On November 25, I was given a routine physical examination, my head was shaved, and then I was taken to an internment camp, where I was held for about six months. During my internment, I witnessed many tragic episodes. I often saw camp guards carry away internees that were badly beaten or tortured. The sanitary conditions were appalling in the camp; so was the food: The soup was very salty, which also had insects and worms in it. We were given green leaves most of the time. Some people passed out due to malnutrition.
We were only allowed to go to toilet every other day, with our legs in shackles. The internees were chained in pairs, shackled ankle to ankle, and the amount of time given to 16 to 20 people to relieve themselves was only 10 minutes. When we stood in line to use the toilet, the Han Chinese police would stand at the area where the surveillance camera could not reach and give us heavy kicks in the back with such hatred. We were not allowed to turn our heads, and we had to lower our heads. Until the next toilet visit (in 48 hours) we would use the bucket (without a lid) placed in the corner of our holding cell for our bodily functions. As can be expected, we were subjected to the stench all the time, which resulted in our runny noses and nasal infection.
When I was first taken to the internment camp, I was told to remove all my clothes except for the underwear, and then I was put in a cell (2.5 meters by 2.5 meters) that was small and cold, holding 16 internees, including me. We were all freezing since we almost had no clothes on. There was minimum heating in our cell in that there was only a half-meter-long iron tube that radiated some heat, so that we would not freeze to death; but we still felt cold. Sleeping in that cell was a struggle as we were 16 held in there, so eight of us lay on one side, while the other eight lay on the opposite side. We were chained in pairs also in the cell, shackled ankle to ankle, where two of us shared one blanket. We would freeze during the night and our feet were so cold, where most of the night we would be awake because of the cold.
We were forced to memorize Chinese poems, which were quite lengthy, i.e., two to three pages long, and sometimes eight to ten pages. If we failed to memorize the poems, we would be punished. In the cell we must always sit upright on the floor, and if we moved a little bit to relax, they would notice it via the surveillance cameras and take us to the torture room, where we would be beaten severely while lying on our backs. If we moved our lips just a bit, the camp guards would think that we were saying prayers, for which we would be tortured. I bore witness to the fact that 40 to 50 internees were brutally tortured, who could not even stand up after being tortured. It was like the Nazi camps. I saw the Nazi camps in the movies before, and the internees could talk to each other, but we were not allowed to talk or whisper to each other, not even allowed to look at one another.
There were not any cooks in the internment camp to prepare food for us, so one day the camp guards asked us, “Is there any cook in here?” I said I was a chef, and I cooked for them. They liked my food. I also fed our brothers and sisters in the camp. We washed the vegetables before cooking to remove worms and insects. We improved the quality of the food, and the internees were happy too; sometimes they thanked me with tears in their eyes as we handed them food. The kitchen was between the cells and the interrogation room, so I saw the camp guards interrogating our brothers and sisters, who were subjected to food and sleep deprivation; some of them were interrogated for more than 48 hours.
The interned Uyghurs were not perpetrators of crimes; rather, they were interned, interrogated, and tortured because of their Uyghur identity. The internment camps were used to lock up, interrogate and torture us Uyghurs to the death point, only then maybe we would be transferred to so-called “reeducation” camps (i.e. internment camps). On May 5, 2015, I was taken to one such camp. I was happy to be released, and one camp guard said, “You are not guilty, you are innocent.” I was incredibly happy. They made me sign a paper that stated that I was innocent.
I was then taken to Layqa village (Layikacun 拉依喀村) reeducation center in Khotan, a huge old school repurposed as an internment camp. Upon my arrival, I saw security presence, and the perimeter of the camp was cover by barbed wire. When I was re-registered, they asked me why I had been arrested and how long I had been held at the previous camp. I was assigned to a room, which was small, and surveillance cameras were installed in that room. The room was divided into three sections with a separate door, and it had a corridor with an iron door on the outside. The wake-up siren would sound in the morning, and we must tidy up our beds and get ready to use the toilet.
The situation in this new camp was a bit better than that of the previous one, i.e. I could see the sun outside and could go to the toilet more often. However, we were still not allowed to pray or do wudu (i.e. washing before daily prayer); any kind of worship was forbidden. Before breakfast we would be taken outside for a run, a kind of exercise the camp guards called it, but it was another form of torture for it was not a regular short run; rather, it was long and difficult. There were 70-year-old ladies amongst us, who could not run as walking itself was challenging enough for them. Sometimes they would trip and fall to the ground, and the camp guards would then beat or kick them; the poor old ladies would stand up and run again. Some young women could not keep up as we ran, for which they were beaten badly. To avoid punishment, we had to persist. After the daily running session, we would have to clean the floor. We would then stand in a straight line waiting our turn to get our breakfast, and we must be quiet, or we would get verbal insults accompanied by beating; we were treated like criminals. We would sit quietly on the ground when we ate our food, keeping our heads down the whole time.
After breakfast, we would attend the class from 8 a.m. to noon, and at noon we would have lunch, after which the class would continue from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.; we were taught anything but vocational skills. They would teach us how they (the Han Chinese colonists) were so generous toward us Uyghurs, how the Uyghurs had betrayed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and how the Uyghurs should be grateful to the Chinese regime. After the afternoon class, we would have one-hour break for dinner.
From 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. we would be taught what were considered illegal religious and extremist activities by the CCP. If we could not learn fast enough, they would threaten to send us to prison; in fact, some internees were sent to prison for they could not learn the stuff quick enough.
In this second camp, there would still be beatings with clubs and verbal insults. We were not allowed to move around freely, to pray, to recite the Koran, or to talk to someone. We would be taken outside to do some cleaning up, we were forced to study outside during the hot summer weather, and some people would be tied up and forced to stay in the sun for long hours at a time as a punishment. It was in June and July, and some young men passed out. We sat outside on the ground in an upright position at assigned spots even though there was a classroom at disposal. Every day, we would be forced to read propaganda materials, praising the CCP. We were also commanded to write self-criticism letters, admitting to our “wrongdoings and crimes” and thanking/praising the CCP for showing us the right way and giving us everything we needed. We would also criticize ourselves for not being loyal to the CCP, and repeat the following: Xinjiang (East Turkistan) has always been an inseparable part of China since ancient times. We were subjected to such brainwashing, and forced to renounce our Uyghur identity.
I was held in the second camp for 70 days or so. Before my release I got to meet my family, and I learned that many parents were taken to the internment camps and the police started rearresting Uyghurs who had been released from the internment camps. I realized I would not be safe after my release. I felt distressed about my situation, not knowing what to do or where to go. I could be rearrested/reinterned after my release.
Right before I was released, the staff in the office asked me if I was a cook, to which I replied, “Yes.” They then asked me to work for them as a cook, so I had worked at my second internment camp for seven months or so with four other cooks, during which time I saw many Uyghurs who were brought there without committing any crime.
In November 2015, my wife suffered serious heart problems, so I asked permission to go home. I worked really hard and I always tried to cook better food, and the camp guards were satisfied with my job, thereby granting me the permission to go home to my wife. They gave me a letter stating that I was their cook and I would go back soon.
When I left the internment camp, I saw that the whole street was barricaded with iron bars, and many buildings had been built, with desks and chairs in all the rooms. Checkpoints and surveillance cameras were set up everywhere.
After I returned home, I was going to take my wife to the hospital by bus, but my wife left home a little bit earlier than me. Unfortunately, the police arrested her on the street at a bus stop for wearing a headscarf that was tied under her chin. Many women were beaten and dragged into police cars, and then taken to internment camps for the same reason, i.e., wearing a headscarf that was tied under their chin. Other women were arrested/interned for wearing longer skirts. I told my wife that she had to be extra careful with her choice of clothes regarding the traditional Uyghur clothing, and that she should avoid wearing long skirts and covering her face.
I desperately looked for my wife going to all nearby police stations in Khotan County, but I could not find her. One government employee at the town office (working for the police) asked me why she was arrested, and I said that my wife wore a headscarf. Finally, I found my wife in an internment camp which was previously a local government office building, i.e., the judicial and public security bureau. My wife was sick when I saw her, and her eyes were filled with tears. We were allowed to see each other once a day through the iron fence. I also saw other 60 or so women held in there. My wife and other internees were not given any food, so I had to bring my wife food every day. The internees were forced to dance all day and were not allowed to do anything freely, and they were even monitored in the toilet.
My wife was getting worse day by day, and I had to find a way to get her out in order to seek medical treatment, so I went to see the secretary of the judicial and public security bureau. He was initially reluctant to give permission, but later he agreed to release my wife. I then took my wife to the hospital, where she was treated for two months or so.
The police started arresting Uyghurs again, and everyone was distressed. On top of that, I had to feed my family, so I decided to move to Khotan city, where I opened a restaurant after getting approvals from various government departments. In 2016, I managed to get passports for my wife and myself, and we finally escaped from the Chinese regime. I left first in April 2016, and my wife joined me two weeks later. We had to leave everything behind.
I believe that the Chinese regime initially carried out several waves of mass arrests, first interning the religious Uyghurs from the villages and towns, imams, secretaries of mosques, and anyone who had religious knowledge even though they did not do anything wrong. The two big detention centers in Khotan County were full, so they started building new internment camps and repurposing existing building as internment camps.The internees’ food and prison uniforms were paid by their family members, i.e., CN¥1200–1500CN¥ (roughly US$188–US$235). If the families did not have enough money, they had to sell their livestock. The food served in the camps were mainly steamed buns and rice.