7- 13 June 2021 Weekly Journal of Press

New Horrors: Uyghur Concentration Camp Survivor Testimonies

CJ Werleman, June 10

Two dozen Uyghur concentration camp survivors, relatives of detainees and former Chinese guards gave testimony to the Uyghur Tribunal over four days, from June 4 to 7.

Herewith a summary of the more sho- cking testimonies: Abduweli Ayup was born in Kashgar city, , in 1973. I am currently residing in Tur- key. I was detained by the local Chinese State Security Police from August 19th, 2013 until November 20th, 2014. The reason was because I was promoting, online, the linguistic rights of Uyghur people and in the process of opening They asked me to take off my whole clothes and two kindergartens in the Uyghur mot- they asked me to bow. Just like a dog, dog style. her tongue in Urumqi and Kashgar. Then the sexual abuse happened. At first, they threatened me to life imp- Read more of his testimony here: https:// risonment. And then they used an ele- uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploa- ctric stick. They shocked my right arm ds/2021/06/04-1710-JUN-21-UTFW-013-Abduwe- and once in the armpit. This is in the li-Ayup-English-1.pdf interrogation room. And then they ac- cused me of being a spy for the CIA and Sayragul Sauytbay for instigating separatism and inciting I was told that I would be teaching detainees at the people to break Chinese language po- education centre. My first impression of the centre licy. was that it was a scary fascist camp.

1 Weekly Journal of Press 7- 13 June 2021 They forced me to sign a confidentiality -ag carry heavy stones and break these stones reement, repeatedly stating that if I break into pieces, and when he could not lift stones any of the rules I would face death. That anymore, he would be clubbed by the guards. is how I started my work at the detention In the evening, he had to face interrogations camp in . for reasons like “not working hard” or “not My memories of the camp are that it was admitting guilt.” chilling, worse than a prison. Detainees were During interrogation, they would take off subjected to extreme mental under his nails with pliers and use the pliers to pin- various malevolent schemes of pressure and ch his leg tendons. They would also hit him horror. All the detainees were handcuffed on the head, so much that he was bleeding and shackled, both men and women’s heads from his head several times, and these inju- were shaved, there were cameras installed ries ultimately caused memory loss. everywhere, their movements were surveyed Read more of her testimony here: https:// for 24 hours. Detainees were from all ages. uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploa- The youngest was a 13-year-old boy and the ds/2021/06/04-1225-JUN-21-UTFW-047-Pa- oldest an 84-year-old man. The majority were tigul-Talip-English.pdf men and women aged 60 to 70 years old. Omir Bekali Read more of her testimony here: - htt I was handcuffed and a black hood was placed ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ on my head. They said this was the rule and uploads/2021/06/04-1400-JUN-21-UT- they did this to everyone. Three policemen FW-001-Sayragul-Sawutbay-English.pdf took me to a place like a hospital where a full Patigul Talip body examination took place while my hood Today my husband cannot really speak on was still on. Blood andurine samples were ta- this because of the trauma he endured, it af- ken.Then I was placed on a bed. They applied fected his memory too. a cold gel on different parts of my body, so I During his imprisonment, Muhemmetimin thought they were doing ultrasound. I could was taken to forced labour and had to spend hear them speaking about my examination, sixteen hours a day doing hard physical work. but I could not see anything, I was terrified He has frequently faced hunger and was be- that they might cut me open and remove my aten by the police for no reason. He had to organs. They interrogated me for four days and ni- ghts with extreme torture methods. They

2 7- 13 June 2021 Weekly Journal of Press made me sit on the “tiger” chair. They hung FW-005-Qelbinur-Sidik-English-1.pdf me from the ceiling. They chained me to the Shemsinur Abdighafur wall and beat me with plastic, wooden, ele- In my time working in hospitals in China I ctric batons and metal wire whip. They pier- witnessed and heard about a lot of forced ced needles under my nails. I could take nap sterilizations and forced abortions of Uyghur of ten or fifteen minutes only when I was women. seated on “tiger” chair. They forced me to We could sometimes hear that some babies accept three crimes: instigating terrorism, were born, and they started crying and from organising terror activities, and covering up this we knew they were alive. But we knew for terrorists. I denied everything. all babies would be given the injection so we Read more of his testimony here: https:// knew they would die before they got home. uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploa- When they put the needle in, they see if a ds/2021/06/04-1020-JUN-21-UTFW-018-O- liquid comes out, if it does it confirms it is in mir-Bekali-English.pdf the right place. I witnessed the injection be- Qelbinur Sidik ing done. It was done daily. When I looked at them as they came out, I Read more of her testimony here: https://uy- noticed that they are older adults with cha- ghurtribunal.com/wp-content/meryem-Ro- ins on their hands and feet. (I burst into te- ars every time when I gave a testimony about them. People have been trying to comfort me and I’ve also promised myself not to cry every time when I speak about them but I can’t help it when I think of them and their condition at that moment.) The sound of these torture was all over the building. So wild. Those who have suffered so much cannot go to class. After months in the cells, their limbs were severely injured, and those with disabilities were taken to hospitals, and those who could not be trea- ted were amputated. Bumeryem Rozi Read more of his testimony here: - htt I was subjected to a . My son ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ and other family members have been detai- uploads/2021/06/04-0930-JUN-21-UT- ned by Chinese authorities. When we arrived in the hospital there were many other Uyghur women from different vil- lages. All of the patients I saw were Uyghur. They put the four women I had travelled with and me into four different rooms, at almost the same time. In all rooms, there was one bed inside. It was there the abortion was car- ried out. They gave me a tablet. Then 2 hours later they injected my stomach. A further 2 3 Weekly Journal of Press 7- 13 June 2021 hours later the dead baby came out. I was not allowed to leave the room until the baby came out. I passed out from the pain and I stayed there another half an hour after the abortion. Read more of her testimony here: https:// uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploa- ds/2021/06/05-1650-JUN-21-UTFW-039-Bu- meryem-Rozi-English.pdf Tursunay Ziyawudun Before we ate our breakfast, which was water When we arrived at that day, there was a with very little rice, we had to sing songs hai- man who came to teach us about the law, ling the and repeat and then an Imam came to us and told us these lines in Chinese: “Long live ,” not to pray, that it was wrong, not to wear and “Leniency for those who repent and pu- a headscarf, not to wear a skirt, not to be- nishment for those who resist.” We had seven lieve in God, and we have to believe in the days to memorise the rules of the camp and Communist Party. fourteen days to memorise all the lines in a I was in a state of mental breakdown, so I fell book on Communist ideology. down, and the guard kept kicking me in the Read more of her testimony here: - htt stomach and head, and I felt that my stoma- ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ ch was split open. He cursed me and kicked uploads/2021/06/06-1650-JUN-21-UT- me, he said all these Uyghur are like this, FW-014-Mihrigul-Tursun-English.pdf they should be treated like this, and then he kept kicking me, and then I passed out. I would rather kill myself than suffer what I had to endure again. Read more of her testimony here: - htt ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ uploads/2021/06/05-1400-JUN-21-UT- FW-019-Tursunay-Ziyawudun-English.pdf Mihrigul Tursun There were around forty people kept in a Gulbahar Haitiwaji forty square metre cell so, at night, ten to fif- Because I had lost a lot of weight at that time, teen women would stand up while the rest more than 15 kilos, and I weighed less than would sleep on our side so that we could fit. 50 kilos at that time. I was already skin and Then we would rotate every two hours. The- bones, and wherever I was hit I would hit the re were people there who had not taken a bones directly. shower for over a year. We will be punished if we communicate in In the basement, they put me in a compute- Uyghur language, a whole room of people rized machine fully naked. They did a vagina will be punished. They would punish us for test, which caused an extreme pain. Since a whole week for crawling and cleaning all then, my period stopped for seven months. the hallways and aisles, as well as the toilet

4 7- 13 June 2021 Weekly Journal of Press restrooms. We would have had no dignity at for over 10 years. My job was mainly related all. We were not allowed to have any incli- to maintaining social order and national se- nation for religious activities at all. curity. I also worked on investigating political Read more of her testimony here: - htt and religious suspects, including Falun Gong ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ and Islamist groups. In 2018, I was posted to uploads/2021/06/06-1400-JUN-21-UT- East Turkistan. I left China in 2020 and cur- FW-006-Gulbahar-Haitiwaji-English-1.pdf rently live in Germany. When I arrived and I went on my round, Mehmut Tevekkül we arrested around 300,000 . The Some eight-month-old babies they would just reason for these arrests included that they kill straight away. There was one female from might have had a knife at home or becau- our neighbourhood who was pregnant, and se they were showing their cultural identity, she tried to avoid the check-up. She was dis- or they were somehow considered to have a covered after 9 months. The authorities said different ideology. In some villages in Xinji- either you pay a 50,000 Yuan penalty or you ang, the whole population of a village was agree to an abortion. Since they were quite taken to the concentration camps. poor, they had no choice, and the abortion Read more of his testimony here: https:// was done. That mother couldn’t cope with uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/uploa- this and died soon after. ds/2021/06/07-1000-JUN-21-UTFW-022- They beat me up. The level of torture I will Wang-Leizhan-English.pdf never forget. I was put on the tiger chair and they whipped my feet with iron wire. There is a bolt directly above the tiger chair and the heat from that bolt is unbearable. Read more of his testimony here: - htt ps://uyghurtribunal.com/wp-content/ uploads/2021/06/07-1235-JUN-21-UT- FW-038-Mehmut-Tevekkul-English.pdf Wang Leizhan I trained at a military police academy in ma- inland China. I have worked as a policeman

5 Weekly Journal of Press 7- 13 June 2021

China: Draconian repression of Muslims in East Turkistan amounts to crimes against humanity

Amnesty International, 10 June 2021

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim mino- rity men and women subjected to mass internment and torture Millions of Muslims subjected to syste- matized mass surveillance Muslim ethnic groups forced to abandon their religious traditions, cultural practi- tional’s Crisis Response team released dozens of ces and local languages new testimonies from former detainees detailing More than 50 former camp detainees the extreme measures taken by Chinese authori- give harrowing new testimonies with ties since 2017 to essentially root out the religious detailed inside look at internment con- traditions, cultural practices and local languages ditions and treatment of the region’s Muslim ethnic groups. Carried out Amnesty International campaign calls under the guise of fighting “terrorism”, these cri- for closure of internment camps, with mes have targeted ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui, over 60 detailed casefiles on those thou- Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks. ght to be currently detained. Chinese authorities have built one of the world’s most sophisticated surveillance systems and a vast network of hundreds of grim “transformati- Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other predominant- on-through-education” centres – actually, intern- ly Muslim ethnic minorities in East Turkis- ment camps – throughout East Turkistan. Torture tan face systematic state-organized mass and other ill-treatment is systematic in the cam- imprisonment, torture and persecution ps and every aspect of daily life is regimented in amounting to crimes against humanity, an effort to forcibly instil a secular, homogeneous Amnesty International said as it launched Chinese nation and Communist party ideals. a new report and campaign today. “The Chinese authorities have created a dysto- In the 160-page report, ‘Like We Were pian hellscape on a staggering scale in East Tur- Enemies in a War’: China’s Mass Intern- kistan. ment, Torture, and Persecution of Mus- lims in East Turkistan, Amnesty Interna- 6 7- 13 June 2021 Weekly Journal of Press The Chinese authorities have created a irons and handcuffs that restrain the body in dystopian hellscape on a staggering scale painful positions. Beatings, sleep deprivation in East Turkistan. Uyghurs, Kazakhs and and overcrowding are rampant in the police other Muslim minorities face crimes aga- stations, and detainees reported being hoo- inst humanity and other serious human ded and shackled during their interrogation rights violations that threaten to erase and transfer. their religious and cultural identities.

“Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minori- ties face crimes against humanity and other serious violations that threaten to erase their religious and cultural identities. “It should shock the conscience of humanity that massive numbers of people have been subjected to brainwashing, torture and other degrading treatment in internment camps, while millions more live in fear amid a vast surveillance apparatus.” Mass imprisonment Guards surround a large group of detaine- The report documents how, since early 2017, es in an internment camp in East Turkistan, huge numbers of men and women from pre- China. © Molly Crabapple dominantly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinji- ang have been arbitrarily detained. They inc- From the moment they entered the prison-li- lude hundreds of thousands who have been ke internment camps, detainees’ lives were sent to prisons in addition to hundreds of extraordinarily regimented. They had no pri- thousands – perhaps even a million or more vacy or autonomy, and they faced harsh pu- – who have been sent to internment camps. nishments – sometimes collectively with their All of the more than 50 former detainees cellmates – for trivial disobedience. Internees Amnesty International interviewed were de- were forbidden to speak freely to each other, tained for what appears to be entirely lawful and they were severely punished when they conduct, such as possessing a religious-the- responded to prison guards or other officials med picture or communicating with someo- in their native tongues instead of Mandarin. ne abroad. A government cadre who parti- Every activity in the detainees’ daily routine cipated in mass arrests in late 2017 told the was pre-ordained and their behaviour was organization how police took people from constantly monitored and evaluated. their homes without warning and detained One woman who was detained for having them without any due process. WhatsApp on her phone said: “[Every day] Most survivors who spoke to Amnesty In- you get up at 5am and have to make your ternational were first interrogated at police bed, and it had to be perfect. Then there was stations, where they had their biometric and a flag-raising ceremony and an ‘oath-taking’. medical data recorded before being transfer- Then you went to the canteen for breakfast. red to a camp. They were often interrogated Then to the classroom. Then lunch. Then to in “tiger chairs” – steel chairs with affixed leg the classroom. Then dinner. Then another class. Then bed. Every night two people had 7 Weekly Journal of Press 7- 13 June 2021 to be ‘on duty’ [monitoring the other cellma- tes] for two hours… There was not a minute left for yourself. You are exhausted.” In the early weeks or months of internment, detainees are typically forced to either sit still or kneel in the same position in their cell, in complete silence, for most of their waking hours. Following this, they generally undergo forced “education”, where they are indoctri- nated to disavow Islam, forgo using their lan- guage and other cultural practices, and study Mandarin Chinese language and Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Other than being escorted under armed gu- ard to and from canteens, classes or interro- gation, detainees practically never leave their cells and rarely see sunlight or have outdoor access or exercise. Systematic torture Every former detainee Amnesty International interviewed suffered torture or other ill-tre- atment. A detainee is beaten by internment camp This included the cumulative psychological ef- guards while immobilized in a tiger chair. © fect of their daily dehumanization, as well as Molly Crabapple physical torture in the form of beatings, elect- ric shocks, solitary confinement, deprivation ch their cellmates being tortured. Amnesty of food, water and sleep, exposure to extre- International learned of one case where a de- me cold, and the abusive use of restraints, tainee is believed to have died as a result of including torture tools like tiger chairs. Some being restrained in a tiger chair, in front of his reported being restrained in a tiger chair for cellmates, for 72 hours, during which time he 24 hours or more. urinated and defecated on himself. An older woman who was punished for de- Surveillance state fending her cellmate said she was taken to a Both inside and outside the camps, East Tur- small, dark, cold and windowless room where kistan’s Muslims are among the most heavily she had her hands and feet cuffed and was surveilled populations in the world. forced to sit on an iron chair for three days For at least several months after being rele- straight. ased from a camp, all former internees are Two former detainees said they had been for- under near-constant electronic and in-person ced to wear heavy shackles – in one case for surveillance, including invasive “homestays” an entire year. Others described being shoc- by government cadres who monitor them and ked with electric batons or sprayed with pep- report “suspicious” behaviour. This could be per spray. peaceful religious practices, the use of una- Some detainees reported being tortured mul- uthorized communications software (such as tiple times, while others were forced to wat- 8 7- 13 June 2021 Weekly Journal of Press VPNs or WhatsApp), or purchasing an “unu- …anymore,” one man told Amnesty Interna- sual” amount of fuel or electricity. tional. Qur’ans, prayer mats and other religi- Freedom of movement for released interne- ous artifacts have effectively been banned. es is also heavily restricted, with a massive Former Chinese government cadres told Am- number of security forces patrolling the stre- nesty International how they barged into pe- ets and operating thousands of checkpoints, ople’s homes to confiscate religious items. euphemistically known as “convenience poli- “We told them to remove photos [of mosqu- ce stations”. es] and put up [Chinese] flags,” one said. Those interviewed by Amnesty International described how mosques, shrines, gravesites, and other religious and cultural sites have been systematically demolished or repurpo- sed throughout East Turkistan.

A security checkpoint outside of a train station in Urumqi, East Turkistan. Han Chi- nese people and members of predominantly Muslim ethnic groups go through separate checkpoints. Muslims are subjected to much more severe security checks. © Molly Cra- Chinese government officials removing reli- bapple gious and cultural artefacts from a home. © Molly Crabapple Religious persecution Muslims are not free to practice their religion Massive cover-up in East Turkistan. Dozens of Muslim men and The Chinese government has gone to extra- women told Amnesty International the regi- ordinary lengths to cover up its violations of onal Chinese authorities showed extraordi- international human rights law in East Turkis- nary hostility towards their Islamic faith. Ba- tan. Authorities threaten, detain and mistre- sic religious and cultural practices have been at anyone who speaks out. deemed “extremist” and used as grounds for The fate of hundreds of thousands of detaine- detention. es is not known. Many may remain in detenti- As a result, most people have stopped pra- on in the camps. Others have been given long ying or showing any outward signs of obser- prison sentences – Chinese state data shows ving Islam. This extends to dress, grooming significant increases in prison sentences and and even speech. “We couldn’t say ‘as-sala- satellite imagery shows significant new pri- mu-alaykum’ [a typical greeting in many Isla- son construction in East Turkistan since 2017. mic cultures meaning “peace be upon you”] Others have been transferred to situations of forced or coerced labour. 9 Weekly Journal of Press 7- 13 June 2021 “China must immediately dismantle the inter- China must immediately dismantle the nment camps, release the people arbitrarily internment camps, release the people ar- detained in them and in prisons, and end the bitrarily detained in them and in prisons, systematic attacks against Muslims in Xinji- and end the systematic attacks against ang,” said Agnès Callamard. Muslims in . “The international community must speak out and act in unison to end this abominati- tigative mechanism with a view to bringing on, once and for all. The UN must establish those suspected of responsibility for crimes and urgently dispatch an independent inves- under international law to account.”

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