A testimony from our “100 Camp Testimonies” Book
I was born in Sekkizsomul village, Chapchal County, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, East Turkistan. I sold vegetables for a living. In November 2017 I was arrested in Khorgas. After having been interrogated for two days, they took me to the Kunas internment camp. I did not know why I was arrested.
At that time, I was preparing to go visit one of our relatives in Kazakhstan, who was sick. I knew one of the policemen who arrested me, an ethnic Kazakh named Murat who worked at the police station in Sekkizsomul village of Chapchal County. I did not know the other two policemen. They handcuffed me and shoved me into a car in front of my wife and children. I asked, “Why did you arrest me?” They said, “Not now, but we will tell you when we arrive.”
So the interrogation began, “Why are you going abroad?” I said, “I recently got the passport.” Murat, the police officer, knew it as well. I said, “I wanted to go abroad, so I did all the paperwork that was required of me to apply for a passport. I did not steal the passport. Rather, I got it from your own hands. You approved it with your stamp. We planned to go to Kazakhstan to visit one of our relatives who was sick, and I wanted to bring my family members.” They asked, “Why were you going there? Kazakhstan is one of the 26 terrorist countries.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier when I was applying for a passport? If you had told me it was a terrorist country, I would not have planned to go there. You gave me the passport two months ago. Why didn’t you say that at that time?” They then said, “You were fleeing to Kazakhstan, to which you wanted to immigrate.” I said, “Why was it a big deal? Many others are also going there. What’s wrong with leaving?”
They said, “You have an ideological problem. You were going to one of the 26 terrorist countries, and what you did was very severe and punishable.” I said, “Why is it so severe? Are those Khitay also terrorists then? Why don’t you arrest them?” They said, “You said Khitay.” “What else should we call them other than Khitay?” They said, “You definitely have an ideological problem, and that’s why we have arrested you.” I said, “Hmm, because of that you arrested me?” They said, “You should admit to your crime.” I replied, “Which crime?”
They tortured me during the interrogation. They beat me and strapped me into the tiger chair, a torture equipment. They interrogated me day and night, and then commanded me to sign a document. I asked why I should sign it. They said I was planning to flee to a terrorist country, i.e., Kazakhstan. I reasoned that how could one call it fleeing when I had a passport in my hand issued by the Chinese authorities. They insisted that I sign the document that stated that I was going to flee and accused me of a lot of crimes. Then they applied ink to my finger and forced me to press my finger on the document, even though I refused to sign it. Then they stamped that document with many other seals. I didn’t know what was happening, and they were just doing their routine work I guess. Just like that, I was forced to admit to the crimes that I never committed in the first place.
On the third day, I was taken to the No.3 middle school of Chapchal County, which was repurposed as an internment camp. There were seven buildings in total, where buildings No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 on one side, while buildings No. 5, No. 6, No. 7 on the other side. I was put in the cell on the 6th floor of building No. 1, whose windows were blocked with iron bars and wire. The cell had several doors, and we went in and out of which by crawling through a small opening in the door, as they normally didn’t open the doors. The middle door could only be opened with the finger of the camp guards. We had to walk past seven doors to go outside, and once we were outside we were surrounded by iron fences, like a birdcage, that restricted our movement, separating us from the camp guards who were outside of the fences.
The camp guards stood outside of the fences with their weapons, who were sent from the security bureaus, border security forces, and the local police stations. Moreover, there were police dogs and armed forces, some of whom had machine guns. The internment camp had watch towers, and the guards were on patrol all the time. Even when we went to eat, the guards had their weapons with them. There was a teaching building, where they forced us to sit for 10 to 15 hours a day without allowing us to move our bodies. They also forced us to sing communist “red songs” (hongge 红歌 ‘Chinese patriotic songs’), apart from which we did nothing in that teaching building. There were only red songs and torture.
On account of long hours of sitting, our feet would often swell. Inside the cell, we, eight internees, would sit in two rows on children’s stools, and we were not allowed to look around and had to look at the ceiling. We would sleep at 9 p.m., but the side sleeping position was not allowed, only on the back with absolutely no movement. They would call us immediately if they saw any movement during our sleep through the surveillance camera. I don’t know how many hours I would sleep. In addition, at night they would order two of us to keep watch, so that we would monitor each other, and we would rotate every two hours until the next morning. We were tormented in the camp all the time in one way or another. They beat me every day. Every evening, they would take me to the interrogation room and beat me. They would ask me to tell the truth and question me three times a day, while I would reply, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
We were allowed to go to the toilet only three times a day. They would wake us up every day at 4:20 a.m. with a piercing whistle. They would also use the loudspeakers, and we would line up. There was only one toilet, and five of us would go to the toilet at a time, each of us was allowed only two minutes to be in the toilet and another two minutes to wash the face.
In the building I was held there were 160 people on the first floor. The cells had varying numbers of internees: In some cells there were 20, in some 40, while in others 12. In my cell we were initially eight, but later the number increased to 12, which resulted in an overcrowded cell. I heard there were cells that held 40 internees, but I did not see such cells myself.
Every morning for breakfast we would have a really small steamed bun, and we never felt full. For lunch, we would be given one steamed bun and smelly pickled vegetables, which we ate with cold water, not boiled water. For supper, they would give us celery water with a few pieces of bread in it. The food quality was extremely bad, not well cooked, but we had no other choice.
The surveillance cameras were installed everywhere in the camp. I estimate that there were around 10,000 people in that camp in which I was held. Women and the elderly were interned separately. In Chapchal County, there were five such internment camps, in which the number of the interned would be at least 30,000, excluding those who were sentenced and sent to jail.
We were forced to speak only Mandarin. The camp guards beat us with plastic rod while saying, “Reveal your crimes, and don’t hide them. You must say all the crimes you have committed.”
One day around midnight the guards dragged one of my cellmates out of the cell, whose name was Ablimit. I knew his father, Eli Bay, who was a bus driver in Qaynaq village. We could not do anything, for it was forbidden to make any sound or movement in the cell. Four days later, Ablimit was brought back to our cell, who was severely tortured during the interrogation. He couldn’t use his hands due to the injuries sustained. The guards placed him next to me and said, “Baqitali, you will bring him to the toilet, and help him eat food, lie down, and get up.” I agreed. And for the following 10 to 15 days I took care of him. In the toilet we managed to talk to each other, the only camera-free area. I helped him lower and raise his pants when he relieved himself. I asked him, “What happened to you? What did they do to you? What happened to your hands?”
They hung him for four consecutive days without his feet touching the floor, beaten with a stun gun baton and other batons. He showed me the injured parts on his body caused by repeated beatings, and it was very difficult to look at. He burst into tears and said, “Why don’t they just kill me instead of torturing me so brutally. I couldn’t bear it brother.” I consoled him by saying, “We have no choice brother, what can we do about it? But we will go out one day.” Then he said, “No brother, they won’t let me out of here. They tortured me, beat me, and asked me to tell them my crimes.” His tendons were stretched so badly that he almost became a paralyzed person. Getting hung like that for four days would finish anyone. They knew that he would die if he didn’t eat anything, so while being hung, they force-fed him by pushing bread into his mouth and pouring water.
Then one day they took him out of the cell and he disappeared. He told me that he hadn’t seen his wife and children for a year. He was a young man in his 30s. There were a lot of young men like him interned in the camp. The Chinese regime tormented and killed many young guys in the camp.
At the beginning they drew my blood once or twice, the purpose of which was unknown to us They also gave me injections once or twice. When they injected some substance into my arm, they said it was for the common cold. They also gave me a blue pill, which was for the cold I got and I was told that I should take it, so they said. And they ensured that I swallowed the pill. When I refused to take the pill, they shouted, “Why don’t you take it?” They put it into my mouth by force. “Take it, otherwise you won’t get better.” We didn’t know what kind of drug it was.
After having been interned for eight months, I collapsed, i.e., I passed out and I continually vomited blood. As a result, they took me to the Chapchal County hospital, where I stayed for about 10 days. Then they brought me back to the camp medical unit, where I stayed for around 20 days. I have all the paper documents for the medical examinations carried out at the camp medical unit. I was a healthy man prior to my internment. I didn’t see anyone there in the camp who could say that they were healthy. Many people got sick on account of the camp conditions, ill treatment, torture, and all the beatings.
There was interrogation on a daily basis, and we were forced to write letters of self-criticism and coerced to sign some documents. There was no one who cared about us. The right to a lawyer was nonexistent. I saw people die because of brutal tortures. There were people who were beaten to death at around midnight. Some internees were there one day, but nowhere to be see the next day. No one knew where they were taken to. They were simply dragged out their cells and never came back. I witnessed the death of two internees. One of them was from the town of Yapchan, while the other was Baratjan, a butcher in Chapchal County, who was the father of a young man named Muhammadeli, my cellmate. Once we saw Baratjan when we were in the hall together, and his son Muhammadeli said, “My father is also here, pointing his finger at his dad. That’s my father, brother Baqitali.” “Yes, I know your father well, he is a butcher in Chapchal County.” We communicated other things by using body language as it was not possible to talk to each other there. Even though Baratjan was sentenced to 13 years in prison, they beat him to death anyway. Another young man from Chapchal, Turghun, was also beaten to death.
Many young men were brought to the camp every day handcuffed and chained to each other. In the evenings, some would be taken away, where some of whom would come back alive, some would be killed, while others would disappear. Many people were paralyzed due to repeated beatings and tortures in the camp. The camp guards did whatever they wanted, and the internees did not have any rights there.
I was released on October 16, 2018 and my health conditions were really bad. My feet were so painful that I couldn’t walk by myself. Every day I vomited blood and I suffered from pulmonary edema, i.e., a condition caused by excess fluid in the lungs. My stomach was also damaged. I was sentenced to five years in prison. Before my release I was forced to sign a document, and they said to me, “You can leave after you have signed this document, or you can’t leave.” They also asked my wife to sign a document that was in Chinese with three official seals.
They set free those with light “offences,” i.e., those who went to Kazakhstan. Right before I was released, they emphasized that I must not tell anyone about my experiences in the camp, not even to my wife. “You must not say that you have been interned in a camp, that you were severely tortured, and so on. If a reporter asks you about it, you don’t say anything. Keep it to yourself. If you tell anyone, you will be brought back here again and you will not be free again.” They forced all of us to sign the non-disclosure agreement. After my release, they installed a camera in my house. I was under house arrest, so I was not allowed to go out. I have all the paper documents about my house arrest.
Back in 2015, my wife was forced to have an abortion by the authorities, and I have a document about that forced abortion. In addition to that, when I was in the camp, the Chinese authorities threatened my family by stating, “Your third child was not allowed, and we will lock you up in the camp too.” My wife was forced to pay a fine of CN¥17400 (roughly US$2731) for having a third child. I also have that receipt as well as other relevant documents.
In order to terminate my business in Kazakhstan, I requested the authorities to give me back my passport and issue one for my eldest daughter. They forced me to sign a paper that stated to the effect of “If I do not come back, they will not free my wife and my two children.” I got my passport back on August 15, 2019 and I traveled to Kazakhstan. I was hospitalized for three months, and several people helped me during that time. I got the medical treatment that I needed. If I hadn’t managed to leave, I would have already died. In November 2019, around three months after I left East Turkistan, the Chinese authorities allowed my wife and children to travel to Kazakhstan to reunite with me.