To whom it may concern,
What follows is public testimony data exported from the Xinjiang Victims Database (shahit.biz) on Fri, 01 Oct 2021 06:26:39 +0000.
A total of 75 victims with the following criteria is considered:
List: Foreign citizens The vast majority of testimonies presented come with supplementary materials - video, audio, pictures, and documents - the links to which are included here and which also may be consulted by accessing the testimonies via the original interface at www.shahit.biz.
In compiling this information, all efforts have been made to faithfully and accurately convey that which has been put forth by the testifier. In many cases, the information was imported from public sources. In others, it was submitted to us directly by the testifier.
Despite our best efforts and most professional intentions, it is inevitable that some human error is nevertheless present. Many testimonies were inputted by non-native English speakers and still require proofreading. Finally, the majority of these testimonies have not gone through rigorous corroboration and as such should not be treated as fact. We hereby leave the way in which this data will be used to the reader's discretion.
Sincerely,
the shahit.biz team 66. Dinara Ergali (迪娜拉·叶尔哈力)
Chinese ID: 654026200409221023 (Mongghulkure)
Basic info
Age: 14 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: has problems Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1+2+3+5: Namishqyzy Nurshat, 54 years old, has long been suffering from a heart disease and high blood pressure, needs regular hospital visits. She got out of the hospital a few days ago. She lives in Aqshi Village in Almaty Region.
Testimony 4: Erbol and Dinara Ergali.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1+2+3+5: daughter
Testimony 4: themselves
About the victim
Dinara Ergali (迪娜拉•叶尔哈力) is a Kazakhstan citizen. She had to go to China as her sister-in-law in China was threatened with detention if she did not return. However, her passport was taken away on her arrival and she was forced to attend daily classes in her hometown. Her Kazakhstan citizenship application had already been accepted at that point.
Address in China: Koktogai village (呼图海村) 51, Aqdala township (阿克达拉乡), Zhaosu county, Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture
Victim's location
Now back in Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
Passport was taken away on her arrival in China on March 1, 2018.
Testimony 5: Her mother claims that she was arrested on June 1, 2018 and released on August 1, 2018 [G. A. Bunin: I have been told, however, that her mother is not trustworthy and intentionally exaggerated the severity of her case.]
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
Dinara returned to Kazakhstan on December 26, 2018.
From Apple Daily report (https://uat-xinjiangcamps.appledaily.com/%E5%8F%97%E5%AE%B3%E8%80%85/%E8%BF%AA%E7%88% BE%E5%A8%9C%E6%8B%89-%E8%91%89%E7%88%BE%E5%93%88%E5%8A%9B/%E5%85%A8%E6%96% 87): After returning to Kazakhstan, she remains in an unstable psychological state and refused to see “Apple” media reporters from Hong Kong. Her mother mentioned that Dinara had considered committing suicide during her political classes in China.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Presumably via WeChat.
Additional information
Summary of Erbol and Dinara's own testimony (Testimony 4):
The first time that Dinara came to Kazakhstan, her sister-in-law – her brother Erbol’s wife – served as her guarantor. After a few months, the local authorities started looking for her to call her back to China, and threatened that they would take her sister-in-law to camp if she didn’t return. Dinara, who had applied for Kazakhstan citizenship while in Kazakhstan, was thus forced to go back to China before her citizenship was officially granted.
She wasn't in a regular camp. Instead, she attended daily sessions and was allowed to come home in the evenings. There were 38 students her age there – 5 Uyghur and 33 Kazakh. She attended the course for two months.
Dinara returned to Kazakhstan on December 26, 2018.
Victims among relatives
Erbol Ergali (67), Arai Muqai (4158), Raian Erbol (4159), Nurmuhamet Erbol (4160)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-g-_6LoI8g Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4M2AemuZyQ Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-KtcYQT_lQ Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2v9Xxur2Bo Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uOH6YVaDBw Chinese ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/66_6.png Entry created: 2018-10-12 Last updated: 2019-10-20 Latest status update: 2019-08-22 198. Zhalyn Muqiat
Chinese ID: 65422319950625??O? (Shawan)
Basic info
Age: 25 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|related to going abroad Health status: has problems Profession: manual work
Testifying party
Testimony 1|4: Gulbarshyn Muqiat, born in 2006, is a citizen of Kazakhstan. (sister)
Testimony 2|5: Baqytgul Aqan, born in 1971, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (mother)
Testimony 3|6: Muqiat Abiken, born in 1971, is a citizen of Kazakhstan. (father)
Testimony 7: Zhalyn Muqiat, born in 1995, is now a citizen of Kazakhstan. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent 11 months at a camp in Shawan County. (the victim)
About the victim
Zhalyn Muqiat is a naturalized Kazakhstan citizen. He appears to have done manual labor for a living, and was working loading goods at the Korgas International Center for Boundary Cooperation at the time of his arrest.
Address in China: Aqzhar Village, Bortungi Livestock Farm, Shawan County, Tacheng Prefecture (塔城地区沙湾县博尔通古牧场阿克加尔村).
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
Early testimonies from his sister and parents conflict only slightly with Zhalyn's own account, saying that he went to China in June-July 2017 and had his documents confiscated. He had already applied for Kazakhstan citizenship by then (with the application approved as of October 2018). According to his relatives, he was arrested on November 27-28, 2017 and sent to camp.
According to Zhalyn himself, the arrest actually took place about 10 days later, as on December 6, 2017 he was contacted by local officials from his village while working at the Korgas International Center for Boundary Cooperation. They told him that they had arrived in Korgas and wanted to see him the next day. Upon meeting, they told him that they needed him to return to the village (Aqzhar) with them, and that doing so would help him get his passport returned to him, eventually allowing him to go back to Kazakhstan. However, upon returning to the village in the evening on December 7, he was taken to a police station, where he was made to sign a form and was then taken for a medical examination, before being put in the camp on the edge of the Shawan municipality [presumably Sandaohezi], which he said used to be a "prison", with a sign saying as much. He was taken to a room on the third floor. [Judging by his description, this is almost certainly the camp just to the west of the pre-trial and administrative detention centers on the western side of Old Shawan Road.]
He would be there until August or September of 2018, when he was transferred to a new converted camp that had previously been part of the Shawan No. 1 Middle School [now the No. 5 middle school]. On November 23, 2018, he would be released and transferred to his village for village surveillance, which would last 6 months, at which point they told him that he could go look for work.
On May 15, 2019, he was suddenly contacted by the head of the village, who summoned him and told him to go to the Bortungi Farm police station. He was told to pack his clothes and was then put into a car with someone else who had been summoned the same way he had. Both men were taken to Korgas and allowed to leave for Kazakhstan.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
According to Zhalyn, the authorities focused mostly on his having gone to Kazakhstan, and had told him and others who had that they had been to one of the "26 dangerous countries".
Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan.
He has been having kidney problems ever since being kicked in the kidney by a soldier at the second camp he was at, and has said that doctors in Kazahkstan have told him that he needs surgery, as both kidneys now have issues. He cannot strain his body very much physically, and cannot do heavy labor.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The original information regarding Zhalyn's disappearance was obtained from acquaintances.
Zhalyn's testimony is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
---
Eyewitness account
[The following is a translated transcript of the interview between Bekzat Maqsuthan from the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization and Zhalyn Muqiat, who spent 11 months at a camp in Shawan County. It was done in Kazakhstan in the fall of 2020.]
Bekzat Maqsuthan: When did you arrive in Kazakhstan? Zhalyn Muqiat: May 15, 2019. Originally, I was born in Shawan County of the Tacheng Region, in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The first time [when the police contacted me], I was working in Korgas. It was in the winter.
B: At the Cooperation Trade Zone?
Z: Yes. The heads of the village and the [Party] secretaries contacted me. “Where are you working?” they asked. “What are you doing? Where are you?” I told them that I was working in Korgas, loading goods. Then one night they called and said: “We’re here in Korgas, where are you?” Then, they asked: “We wanted to meet you in the morning. Do you have time? We want to have an interview with you.” They told me that they wanted to ask about my wellbeing.
…
They called me in the early morning and told me to come to a certain place. I went there. Then, the work group, who were travelling in a car, told me to take them to my place – they said that they wanted to take pictures there and to send it to the upper-level officials. I agreed and took them to the apartment I was renting. They asked about my situation and told me that I would go with them to Shawan County to sign a document. I was having difficulties getting my passport, and they said that they would return it to me, step by step, and would then see me off to Kazakhstan. I agreed. I didn't think more of it and went there, on December 7, 2017.
We set out in the morning and arrived in the evening, with them bringing me directly to the police station, where they asked me to sign a paper. After signing the first page, I started to wonder what it was and why I was signing it, and asked to have a look at the second page. “Don't look at it, just sign!” they shouted. I signed, never suspecting that I would be taken to a camp. They then told me to get into a car. It was around 11 at night.
They proceeded to take me to a local hospital in the county, examining me to see if I had any diseases. Before putting someone in camp, they would get the paperwork from the hospital to make sure if the person was healthy or not, and whether they could transmit any diseases. They would assign people to different rooms based on the medical results.
So they took me to the hospital, and got the results of the blood test. The village police took me there. I wouldn’t think anything of it until I ended up at the camp.
I was healthy. They had checked everything. We arrived at the camp, and I got out of the car. They handcuffed me. I asked them why they were handcuffing me, to which they told me that I’d know soon. That’s what the policeman from our village said. He was Kazakh. I asked him why I was being taken to that place, to which he said that I shouldn’t talk too much and just follow him. I then realized that the place used to be prison [presumably, pre-trial detention center]. It was written on there. It’s located at the edge of the Shawan municipality. It used to be a prison.
Once we entered, they immediately took off my clothes and did an inspection. They took my phone and any other belongings in my pockets, and gave me slippers. Took off the buttons and other things from my clothes, then gave me slippers and took me inside. The village police left without saying anything, while I was taken to a room on the third floor, as there was space there.
I couldn’t sleep at all. There was one guy who was standing, and I asked him why he was standing. “I’m guarding you,” he said. I didn’t say anything. At 6 o’clock in the morning, the guy next to me told me to guard. I didn't know anything, and asked how long I’d need to guard for. For an hour, he said. This was in the room where we slept. They were afraid that the people there might try to do something.
All of us had breakfast in that same room. It was less than 20 square meters, maybe. There were 9 people at the beginning.
They started calling people [for questioning, presumably]. There weren’t so many of us. For 2-3 days, nobody questioned me. I asked the others why they ended up there and why they were detained. There was a young guy who was 18, an Uyghur guy, who ended up there for reading the Quran as a kid, and for being a “wild imam” [an imam not sanctioned by the government].
Only after a week did they come and ask me if I knew the reason for my detention. They asked me. How would I know? I hadn’t committed any crime, so why was I detained? They told me that I had visited Kazakhstan.
I had visited Kazakhstan, a maximum of 7-8 times, going back and forth.
Yes, that’s what I was guilty of. I said that all of my family lived in Kazakhstan and that I didn't have a house there in Xinjiang. They told me that I would be released soon. After that, a Kazakh guy – a policeman – came. His name was Ualihan. He hates people who have been to Kazakhstan.
B: What does he do?
Z: He’s a policeman. He asked me if there were any Kazakhs [in my cell]. I was the only Kazakh back then. I said so. Then he asked me to stand up. When I stood up, he asked: “Do you know why you are here?” I said I knew… [correcting himself] No, I said, I didn't know. Then he asked me where I had been. I said that I had been to Kazakhstan. He said that my brain needed cleaning, adding: “We don't know if you’ve been in contact with terrorists there. That’s why we need to investigate.”
Days passed. A few other guys were brought into my room. The number of people in the room increased, reaching 25. There were triple bunk beds, six in total. Five people would have to stand, and we would take turns sleeping. [Because of the shortage of beds,] three people would have to stand guard each time. After three months, they said that our brains needed cleaning and that we needed to study. They said we needed to know the law and discipline. They said that we didn't know anything, and started by teaching us the lessons intended for first graders.
B: What did they teach?
Z: Chinese characters. Later, they’d keep us in a room and teach us there.
B: Did you learn anything?
Z: There was no choice but to learn. At the beginning, they said that if we abided by the rules, we would be released once our knowledge and level were higher. We learned characters every day. They taught us 20 characters a day.
For breakfast there, we had a steamed bun and vegetables. For lunch, we’d have rice.
B: Just rice? Was there anything else?
Z: There was. It wasn’t just rice. We were there for about 8 months. No, 9 months. B: About how many people were there?
Z: About three thousand, if I had to guess. Numbers-wise, Han were the fewest, with the majority being Uyghur and Hui. Kazakhs were the third largest group.
B: There is a mix of ethnicities in Shawan, right?
Z: There are lots of Uyghurs. We were there for 8-9 months.
There were no other ethnicities [other than the ones mentioned above]. Just the three main ethnicities, and a few Han. We were there for about 9 months. In one prison. Later, because of the lack of space, we were transferred to the former No. 1 middle school, which had been transformed into a prison [camp]. It used to be a Han school. We were all transferred there in a single day. All the soldiers were mobilized, and they put black bags over our heads. Our hands were shackled. There was a policeman next to each one of us, and would take us up into the bus.
B: You didn’t know where you were?
Z: We didn’t. We only saw the place we had arrived at once we were taken inside and the hoods were removed. They didn't tell us [where we were]. There was a 5-story building for men, and a 4-story building for women. Opposite to each other.
B: Was it bigger than that other one?
Z: Yes, it was bigger.
B: Bigger than the 3000 one?
Z: That place had gotten too crowded, so we were moved to the second place. There hadn’t been any vocational skills training. They said at first that there would be vocational training, but there wasn’t anything like that there. That would only be prepared at the No. 1 middle school.
B: Was this in August-September 2018?
Z: Yes, August-September.
B: ….. What did they teach?
Z: They said that we would learn until we gradually reached the stage of learning vocational skills. Again we were taught Chinese. They didn't teach us anything else.
B: But they told you that they would teach [the vocational skills]?
Z: Yes. When you reach that level, you’ll be able to start training, they said. They also said that we would get a salary once that started. We stayed there for two months, and then they started questioning us.
B: In October?
Z: Around October. They would question each of us individually. They would ask: “How are your studies? Are you against studying at this school? We’re opening up your mind. What’s your opinion of the government?” And we’d answer. Then they’d ask if I would leave to go to Kazakhstan. I’d say that I absolutely would leave.
B: You said that you would leave?
Z: Yes. My parents were there. Why couldn’t I go? They would ask such questions and then let you go. This would happen two or three times.
B: Would they say that some people were appealing?
Z: No, they wouldn’t. We heard about it only after being released. At the camp, if you misbehaved, they would shackle you and take you downstairs, to beat you up.
B: Did that happen to you?
Z: It did. They would tie your legs and hands to the chair.
B: Would they use hanging [to torture you] after taking you to the underground place?
Z: Yes. They also wouldn’t give you anything to eat. You would be there for 24 hours. They would tie you to the tiger chair.
B: They would tie your hands, lower back, and legs, and you would sit there?
Z: Yes.
B: One day and one night?
Z: One day and one night. It happened not long after we were taken to the new school. We were on our way to the classroom, walking inside the lines. You couldn’t be outside the lines.
B: Was there a line leading to the place where you studied?
Z: Yes. We studied on the third floor. The classroom was at the end. 20-25 students would be in there studying. That was the largest number they would teach. We were walking. We weren’t allowed to talk in the hall, but I was careless and talked, and they made me sit. They told me to put my hands on my head and sit.
B: Can you show how?
Z: I sat like this. [demonstrates]
B: Did they tell you to sit like this?
Z: Yes. I sat facing the wall. During that time, someone kicked me where my kidney was. It was a soldier. He was from the army.
B: What kinds of clothes was he wearing?
Z: His uniform was different from what the other people at the camp were wearing. He was from the army. A special person. B: Not a policeman?
Z: No, he was from the army. They’re said to have bad characters. He kicked me and I fell.
B: Kicked you where your kidney was?
Z: Yes. He also said to take me downstairs. So, I was taken downstairs. It didn't hurt then.
B: To the underground floor?
Z: Yes. Again, I was seated, in a chair. 10 or 15 minutes later, it started to hurt. The place where my kidney was started to hurt a lot. There was a policeman next to me, and I told him. He said that they would call a doctor to come. Then the doctor arrived.
B: Which kidney?
Z: The one on the right side. They then gave me some round-shaped medicine, and told me to take it so that the pain stopped. I took it and it worked for about 10 minutes, but then it started hurting again. I couldn't bear the pain and told them. There was an official who told them to take me to the bigger county hospital immediately for a check-up. So they put a black bag over my head, shackled my legs, handcuffed me, and took me to the hospital by car. I had an X-ray.
They were whispering something. Then they told me to stand farther away, outside the line. I stayed there and then they told me to go back with them. They said that it was nothing, and I would just need to take some medicine. They administered me the medicine once or twice, then took me back to the chair, where I would remain despite being sick.
B: You were seated in the tiger chair again?
Z: Yes. I sat there until next morning. They took me back to my room in the morning. Whenever I did something difficult or stretched, I felt the pain in that part. I would tell the doctor.
B: The inner part, or…?
Z: The inner part would hurt.
There were different people there, both old and young. Some of them would be sick.
B: How old were the oldest ones?
Z: I stayed with men who were as old as 80.
B: What were their transgressions?
Z: Mullahs… without a certificate.
B: Mullahs? Maybe they had read the Quran after someone passed away?
Z: Yes, and they had taught some students. They [camp staff] would bring some medicine to them. Old people rely on medicine, as without it they would have headaches and other problems. They need them to be safe there. Who would take the responsibility if they died? I told the guys in charge of bringing medicine that my kidney was hurting. Somebody kicked me and now it’s like this, I said. To which they said that they didn’t have the authority, and that I would heal gradually. They gave me some medicine daily, but stopped giving it after a week. There were days when they tortured me, using different methods. They electrocuted me.
B: Why did they beat you?
Z: “Did you go to a mosque while you were in Kazakhstan? What do your relatives do?”
B: They beat you for that? To answer these questions?
Z: They told me to answer. If you said that you had gone to a mosque, you’d be given a year there. So I told them that I hadn't been to a mosque. I said I was a sheep herder. In October, they started questioning all the Kazakhs at the camp. Those who visited Kazakhstan were questioned separately. Mullahs were questioned separately.
B: In October 2018, right?
Z: Yes. Alcoholics and drug addicts were also questioned separately. Step by step. They locked up the people who had visited Kazakhstan in one place. Mullahs were locked up in another place. That’s how they locked us up. Then later they asked us: after handing out a sheet of paper, they asked if we knew that we were being detained because of certain articles [of the penal code].
When we had just been detained, the Chinese told us that we had visited the 26 sensitive countries.
B: 26 dangerous countries?
Z: Dangerous countries.
B: One of the dangerous countries?
Z: One of them.
B: Kazakhstan was listed as a dangerous country?
Z: Yes. But later they didn't say that. That term disappeared. “Just check what you did while you were in Kazakhstan,” they said. “We need to know the details.”
B: So at the end, they stopped saying that Kazakhstan was one of the dangerous 26 terrorist countries?
Z: Yes. At the camp, there were lots of people who had visited Kazakhstan. So they said so. “You didn't come back to China on time.” We had a green card, so for how long… They hadn't told us, in the beginning, for how long we could or could not stay. How many months we could stay, in which month we should return. They didn't even give us such papers. They said that we didn't come back on time as a means of evasion.
At around the end of October, they questioned us individually: “What have you learned in this learning environment? What have you learned? Politics?” We answered. Then they asked if I wanted to go back to Kazakhstan again. I said I did. So they said: “You’ll need to keep what happened here a secret. Don't go public about it. Everything will stay here.” B: They told you not to say anything about the camps?
Z: Yes. “You’ll be released soon,” they said. We were happy. We thought we’d never leave.
B: That’s what you thought in the beginning, right?
Z: Yes. In the beginning, they said it would be 5 to 10 years.
B: You thought you were being given a long prison term?
Z: Yes. Nobody asked [questions about it]. “You’ll be released,” they said, “but you’ll have to control what you say. Don't tell anyone what you’ve seen and heard here. You’ll be monitored after going there.”
B: Did they say who would be monitoring you? They said that they’d be monitoring you in Kazakhstan?
Z: No, in our village. I was released on November 23. A person came from the village. One of my relatives came. They came and took me to the village directly. I was under village monitoring after going to the village.
B: By officials in the village?
Z: Yes, I stayed with them. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere else. “You’ll be monitored for three months,” they said. “If you fail, we’ll take you back [to detention].” That’s how they intimidated us. “You’ll be working here,” they said. “You can't go anywhere.” We said okay. We obeyed. County-level officials would also come during this time. Whenever they came, they’d ask us about our wellbeing.
B: Did they ask about your health?
Z: No. At one point, my kidney started to hurt again. It was extremely painful. The village secretary was there and got scared. There was a farm there, and he immediately said that he would take me to the farm to get examined [presumably the Bortungi Livestock Farm, a township-level administrative unit]. He took me to the hospital that was at the village exit. There, the doctor told me that my diaphragm was damaged. He just checked it with his hands and said that this part might have been damaged. Gave me a patch for pain relief. Two days later, they called my uncle and told him that they should take me to the county hospital.
We went to the county hospital and had an examination. They said that everything was normal. When we showed our ID, they could tell that we had “studied”. There is a “dot” in the document of those who had [unclear if a physical dot or a digital marker].
B: So they just lied?
Z: Yes. Many people weren’t treated. It would hurt on and off. I stayed under village surveillance for about 6 months. Then after about 6 months they told me I could work. The head of the village said: “You can work and earn money.” One day, while I was in the county seat looking for a job, I received a phone call. They ordered me to return to the village immediately.
I got scared again. They told me to come to the farm’s police station. I got scared, wondering what I had done wrong this time. I was living in fear, and you’d be afraid whenever you traveled somewhere. When I got there, they said: “Get your clothes ready.” They said it in exactly the same way as they had the first time. The time I got detained.
I asked if everything was ok. They told me to pack my clothes and have them with me. I went to my grandparents’ house and packed up my clothes. I was taken into a car, where there was another man who had been asked to do the same. I asked him what was going on and he replied that he didn't know. We realized only once we arrived at Korgas that we were going to Kazakhstan. It was May 15, 2019.
B: They took you there?
Z: Yes. They took us to the border and watched us as we crossed. On the Chinese side of the border, our passports were taken away and we waited for about an hour and a half. When we asked for our passports, they told us that they would return them soon. Later, a Kazakh guy came and returned our passports. “I hope you understand even without my saying anything,” he said to us.
B: How did you understand that?
Z: It meant to keep our mouth shut after we crossed the border. We crossed the Chinese side and came to the Kazakh border. I arrived in Kazakhstan on May 15, 2019.
B: Were all the Kazakhs released at the same time that you were? Are there new detainees? What do you think?
Z: There were lots of detainees in 2017. In 2018, too. After all the appeals from here, the Kazakhs started being released.
B: Those who were appealed for got released, right? Did someone appeal on your behalf?
Z: My parents.
B: Is there anyone still in detention?
Z: I heard that the mullahs are still in camps. I heard that mullahs hadn't been released while I was there. Then I came here. My health started deteriorating. Whenever I do heavier work that’s particularly physically demanding.
B: Related to your kidney?
Z: Yes.
B: Did you have a check-up?
Z: I did. I was told that both sides were swollen and needed an operation.
B: Both kidneys?
Z: Both.
B: What happened? You were assaulted on one side.
Z: Yes, kicked on one side. I think that, because the place where we slept was damp, it might have also had an effect. We also don't know what we ate. B: Did you have any injections?
Z: No, I wasn’t injected with anything, unless they did it while I was unconscious.
B: Pills?
Z: We would be given painkillers.
B: Nothing except the medicine for your kidney?
Z: Don't know.
B: They might have added something to your meals?
Z: Maybe.
B: How is your health now?
Z: My two kidneys hurt very much. I can't do heavy labor. I’m not in a good state. I’ve lost a year of my life. I’ve lost my health. I want to ask the international [organizations] if there will be any compensation from China. That’s what I ask for.
B: You want compensation for your health?
Z: Yes.
B: We hope that international human rights organizations will help. What else do you want to say? Have you witnessed anyone else being beaten up or tortured? Could you hear such things?
Z: There were such incidents when I was taken underground. I could hear different voices. You didn’t know what was going on. They would be kept in small rooms but the doors would be open. You couldn’t see other people, but you could hear their voices.
B: Voices of those who were beaten up?
Z: Yes.
B: Screams?
Z: Yes.
B: Voices of those being tortured?
Z: Yes. You could hear it. It wasn’t shown to you.
B: So those so-called “study centers” are, in fact, torture centers?
Z: Yes. They call them “learning centers”, so why torture and shackle people there? You’re supposed to be free there. But we would get up at 6 in the morning, finish our meals by 7, and then sit until the evening. B: In your rooms?
Z: In our rooms.
B: How would you sit?
Z: We would have to sit straight, without moving, with our hands on our knees. On a stool. If you moved, you’d be ordered to stand. They could see it through the cameras. They could hear your voice. We weren’t allowed to speak Kazakh.
B: Only Chinese?
Z: Chinese. You’d be taken downstairs if spoke Kazakh.
B: To be beaten?
Z: Yes. Old men would just keep silent as they could not speak [Chinese]. We experienced various hardships.
B: Were you at the camp for 11 months?
Z: Yes, 11 months.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKqW6uM82kQ
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzlepzWFhiA Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZtPPyqLO3g Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvnDrEpQRm4 Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhKVbH8KAkA Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjBW1qIzkMc Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm53nm00XiY Testimony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKqW6uM82kQ
Entry created: 2018-10-25 Last updated: 2021-08-06 Latest status update: 2020-09-20 216. Qalymbek Saira
Chinese ID: 65422319880506??O? (Shawan)
Basic info
Age: 30 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: house/town arrest When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Mural Narmanuly is from Talgar, Almaty Region, Kazakhstan
Testimony 2-4: Gulbaqyt Qali is now a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: cousin
Testimony 2-4: relative
About the victim
Qalymbek Sairauly, born on May 6, 1988 in China, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. He went to Shawan county in Xinjiang in 2017 to hold a wedding ceremony.
Victim's location
Sauan (Shawan) County, Tarbagatai (Tacheng) Region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained
Testimony 1: March 2018
Testimony 2: January 2017
Likely (or given) reason for detention not stated
Victim's status Testimony 3: Released from re-education camp in February 4-5, 2019 in an unhealthy state and put under house arrest.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVk8OvPoHp8 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAPQjQrB8_0 Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kovaMZEXWYg Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oNhLy4Vx0A
Entry created: 2018-10-26 Last updated: 2018-10-26 Latest status update: 2019-02-07 228. Mantai Shaker
Chinese ID: 6542??19500806??E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 68 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: documents withheld When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): related to going abroad|--- Health status: --- Profession: education
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Altyngul Erezhepbaiqyzy
Testimony 2: Qalelbek Zhalynuly is a Kazakhstan citizen
Testimony 3: Merei Qalelbekuly Sydyq
Testimony 4-7: Malike Pazyl, born on October 8, 1979.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: aunt-in-law
Testimony 2-3: mother
Testimony 4-7: mother-in-law
About the victim
Mantai Shaker is a Kazakh citizen. She worked as a teacher in China and went to China on April 10, 2017, as she was summoned by her old work unit.
DOB: August 6, 1950. Kazakhstan ID: 033464813. Kazakhstan PIN: 500806401932.
Victim's location
Testimony 1: Sauan(Shawan) County, Tarbagatai(Tacheng) Region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
Testimony 2: Wusu city, Tacheng Region, Xinjiang, China [Testimony 2]
When victim was detained Testimony 2+7: May 2018 (probably sent to camp then)
Testimony 2+3: April 10, 2017, as her documents were confiscated upon her arrival in China
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Testimony 1: unclear, presumably for visiting Kazakhstan
Victim's status
Testimony 5: She was released from re-education camp in November 2018, but had her passport seized by local police and was prevented from going abroad.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOSjJsNJaCs Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZxcehk2ZKU Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qbr4NvDE3s Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6l2MKk5tQ4 Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d7r_7QvKac Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_O3e75DSmI Testimony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQYm3zWD_Ms
Entry created: 2018-10-28 Last updated: 2018-10-28 Latest status update: 2019-01-22 245. Baqytgul
Chinese ID: 65232319681019??E? (Kutubi)
Basic info
Age: 50 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: concentration camp When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Tanat Masali, born on July 2, 1962, obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2007. His Kazakhstan ID card number is 025140197. Now he lives in Koksu County, Almaty Region, Kazakhstan
Testimony 2: Roza Tanat, born on September 30, 1999, is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: spouse
Testimony 2: mother
About the victim
Baqytgul (only her first name is written on her ID card), born on October 19, 1968, obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2007 and her Kazakhstan ID card number is 042269637. PIN number is 681019402277. She went to China to visit her mother on March 14, 2018, and the next day the local police sent her to the concentration camp for no reason. Her mother passed away in June 2018. The police let her attend her mother's funeral but she was taken there under escort, in handcuffs.
Address: Torgaity Town, Qutybi (Hutubi) County, Sanzhy(Changji) Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
Victim's location
[Presumably in Changji.]
When victim was detained
March 15, 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention no reason Victim's status in the concentration camp
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlRayANmbvc Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CHX7xxmzF4
Entry created: 2018-10-28 Last updated: 2021-01-24 Latest status update: 2018-12-02 255. Erbolat Zharylqasyn
Chinese ID: 65422119681126??O? (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: 50 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: forced job placement When problems started: Jan. 2017 - Mar. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): other|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
Testimony 1|3|4|5|6|7: Umithan Ybyraihan, a Kazakhstan citizen, born in 1972. (wife)
Testimony 2: Yrysgul Zharylqasyn, a Kazakhstan citizen, born in 1976. (relation unclear)
Testimony 8: Zhemisgul Erbolat, as reported by Apple Daily. (daughter)
Testimony 9: Zhemisgul Erbolat, as reported by Radio Free Asia Mandarin. (daughter)
Testimony 10: Zhemisgul Erbolat, as reported by The Believer. (daughter)
Testimony 11: Sungkar Erbolat, as reported by The Believer. (son)
About the victim
Erbolat Zharylqasyn is a former farmer, and a father of three. He moved to Kazakhstan from China and obtained citizenship there with his wife.
Address in China: Bakshinbulaq Village, Emalgolin Mongol Township, Dorbiljin County, Tacheng Prefecture (塔城地区额敏县额玛勒郭楞蒙古民族乡巴克新布鲁克村).
Kazakhstan ID: 032294427.
Victim's location
[Presumably in Tacheng.]
When victim was detained
Erbolat left Kazakhstan and travelled to China on a three-month visa on March 6, 2017, accompanied by his wife. At some point after his arrival, the local police allegedly confiscated both Erbolat and his wife's Kazakhstani passports, promising to return them in a few days. They were later told to return a 2.2 hectare farmland which was given to them by the government for 30 years in 1997. They had rented out the farmland when they left China for Kazakhstan for 100000RMB. The local authorities required Erbolat to either give up the land or pay 160000RMB. As he was unable to pay, the authorities made him renounce his Kazakhstan citizenship.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
He was forced to renounce his Kazakhstan citizenship because he did not give up his land and could not pay the money the authorities demanded.
Victim's status
He has been staying in China since giving up his citizenship, and his wife and three children have not seen him for a year and a half.
In his interview to The Believer, Sungkar says that the victim is reported to be working as a security guard at No. 1 Dorbiljin Administrative Sector School. He also lives there because relatives are afraid to have him in their home. A relative told the family: "...he was eating together with the students in the school and sleeping in the classrooms at night".
The victim does not contact his family - probably out of fear, according to his children.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The victim's wife visited China in December 2017 and saw her husband living with his relatives. She has been unable to contact him since early 2018.
In her interview to The Believer, Zhemisgul says that she and her brother learned about the victim's situation through distant relatives in China.
Additional information
During her trip to see Erbolat in December 2017, Umithan was forced to sign a divorce agreement by the Tacheng City court.
According to the victim's wife, he wasn't allowed to come to Kazakhstan to attend his mother's funeral [time unclear].
Zhemisgul reports that her mother Umithan’s health has deteriorated since the divorce.
Apple Daily report: https://uat-xinjiangcamps.appledaily.com/尋親者/杰姆斯古麗．葉爾波拉提/全文
Radio Free Asia coverage: https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shaoshuminzu/ql2-02082019104200.html
---
Zhemisgul and Sungkar's interview to The Believer (https://believermag.com/weather-reports-voices-from-xinjiang/):
Zhemisgul: I’m a hairdresser in Taldy-Kurgan. Makeup, hair, skincare. Sungkar: I’m in college in Almaty. I’m a philosophy student. But I was still a schoolboy when our parents went to China. It was March 2017. I was in eleventh grade. Our family had some land that had been given to us by the government. My parents farmed melons, corn, and wheat there. When we left for Kazakhstan, we rented it out. Within a month of our parents’ arrival, the local authorities took their passports and told them they had to give up their land for good. My parents went to speak with our renter. He was supposed to sign a paper agreeing that my parents were giving up the land so that they could return to Kazakhstan. But he wouldn’t sign it. He said he was worried about what would happen to the land after our father left. Would the government take it away?
Zhemisgul: Our parents are both Kazakh citizens. Our father went to China on a three-month visa. It was about to expire, and they were refusing to let him leave—he felt he had no choice but to do as they said. They told him that even if he gave up the land, he would have to pay back all the rent money he’d gotten from the Chinese renter. This was impossible. We didn’t have any way of finding such an amount. The only other option, they said, was to give up his Kazakh citizenship, to become a Chinese citizen again. He had no choice. It was his name on the lease.
Sungkar: They lived at their relatives’ place until December that year. Our mother had a one-year visa, and when this was almost up she decided to return to Kazakhstan. But the authorities wouldn’t let her go unless she divorced my father.
Zhemisgul: They told her that if she didn’t want harm to come to her husband, she should sign the papers and then she could go to Kazakhstan. There was no ceremony. They just took them into a room where they signed the divorce papers. She came back in December.
Sungkar: Last we heard, our father is working as a security guard at Dórbiljin Administrative Sector School #1. He lives there as well. That’s right: at the school. Relatives are afraid to have him in their house, so he has nowhere else to go. We heard this from our mother’s older sister. She sees him in the street sometimes, and updates us on WeChat. But she’s afraid. She told us he was eating together with the students in the school and sleeping in the classrooms at night.
Zhemisgul: Our father is afraid to talk to us. It seems like he’ll be punished if he does. We hear about him only from our distant relatives. And our mother is living alone. Normally she’s the one who talks about our situation, who does this kind of thing. We’re not used to it. But the stress has given her heart problems. She’s had to spend some time at the hospital. That’s where I’m going now, to see her.
Victims among relatives
Zharylqasyn Talasbai (1629)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKP6Qb9Y5c0 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_VmCqhQ4Tg Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atwbFk9wAhc Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EwRhMidYkk Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDDd3SQMrpo Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I45Bq4O-XLU Testimony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hu9k_eflpA Entry created: 2018-10-29 Last updated: 2020-09-20 Latest status update: 2019-08-22 315. Shakarim Matai
Chinese ID: 65420219????????E? (Wusu)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: concentration camp When problems started: Apr. 2018 - June 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Malike Tazym
Victim's relation to testifier mother-in-law
About the victim
Shakarim Matai moved to Kazakhstan in 2009 and obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2012. She went to China on April 10, 2017, to resolve some personal matters.
Address: Wusu City, Xinjiang, China
Victim's location
[Presumably in Tacheng.]
When victim was detained
May 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status in the re-education camp
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egY2TAx1y9o
Entry created: 2018-11-01 Last updated: 2021-01-24 Latest status update: 2018-10-06 320. Gulsimqan Bazarbek (古丽斯木汗·巴扎尔别克)
Chinese ID: 652522194005100024 (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: 78 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues" Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party
Testimony 1|3|4: Bolatbek Raqymbai, born in 1976, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (son)
Testimony 2: Gulsimqan Bazarbek, a citizen of Kazakhstan, originally from Tacheng's Dorbiljin County. She is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent over 8 months in a camp. (the victim)
Testimony 5: Xinjiang Public Security, the government office in charge of public security and arrests.
Testimony 6: Gulsimqan Bazarbek, as reported by "Azat Erkin". (the victim)
About the victim
Gulsimqan Bazarbek is originally from Tacheng's Dorbiljin County, but has been a Kazakhstan citizen since 2009.
Kazakhstan passport number: N06196204. Kazakhstan ID: 026758650.
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
She went to China on December 14, 2017, to go through the deregistration process. When she went to the police to cancel her registration the next day, they took her passport and said that she would get it back soon. This did not happen, however, and in late February 2018 she would be taken to a camp - on the thirteenth floor of a People's Hospital - instead.
In October 2018, she was transferred to the heating company (热力公司) camp.
She was released at the end of November 2018, and would return to Kazakhstan on January 25, 2019. Likely (or given) reason for detention
Believed to have been detained for "dual citizenship".
An official notice from the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, while not addressing her detention, does say that her deregistration case is "currently being looked at" (目前正在审查).
Victim's status
Allowed to return to Kazakhstan.
She is elderly and was found to suffer from heart disease and hypertension.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Her son learned about her status from fellow villagers visiting Kazakhstan. According to Gulsimqan, she was also allowed a phone call with her family soon after her a delegation visited the camp to tell her that her children in Kazakhstan were looking for her.
Gulsimqan's is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Eyewitness account given to Azat Erkin (likely machine-translated from Kazakh): https://erkinazat2018.medium.com/interview-with-a-witness-of-the-chinese-concentrated-camp-555d7a7 aaa32
ChinaAid coverage: https://www.chinaaid.net/2019/12/blog-post_19.html
Eyewitness account
[The following is an abridged summary, based on the victim’s interview with Orynbek Koksebek, another ex-detainee who is now back in Kazakhstan.]
After being detained, Gulsimqan stayed on the thirteenth floor of a People's Hospital in Dorbiljin County. There were six old ladies in her cell, with 12-13 similar cells. The old ladies were forced to learn “red songs” and the Chinese language, which they found really hard, and would only be able to sing together with the other, younger, inmates, as they could not remember the words.
Although they were not beaten or tortured physically, they did suffer a lot psychologically. They couldn't understand what the government wanted from them.
During a medical check-up, Gulsimqan found that she had heart disease and hypertension. Her relatives would bring her meals from home everyday.
Once, a delegation of three people came to visit them: two Han and a Mongol, together with a Kazakh translator. They told her that her children in Kazakhstan were looking for her, after which she was allowed to talk to them on the phone for ten minutes. She kept asking the authorities why she was there. She was neither receiving pension from the Chinese government nor was she in debt. She just wanted to cancel her household registration so as not to hold two citizenships simultaneously, but they wouldn't give her an answer.
The old ladies weren't allowed to wear headscarfs, Gulsimqan mentions, which for them was really shameful.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmlJ7hnFoDU
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFzzc8Bf3mg Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmlJ7hnFoDU Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshkx0Yl_dM Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EwizxeCVgk PSB notice (Testimony 5): https://shahit.biz/supp/320_5.png registration cancellation: https://shahit.biz/supp/320_6.jpeg temporary visa: https://shahit.biz/supp/320_7.jpeg exit stamp: https://shahit.biz/supp/320_8.jpeg
Entry created: 2018-11-02 Last updated: 2021-05-03 Latest status update: 2019-02-28 375. Arzygul Qalambek
Chinese ID: 65402819780520??E? (Nilka)
Basic info
Age: 39 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: house/town arrest When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Zhunisbai Nasilbekuly, born on March 1, 1952, now resides in Almaty Region, Kazakhstan.
Victim's relation to testifier spouse
About the victim
Arzygul Qalambekqyzy, born on May 20, 1978, married to Zhunisbai Nasilbekuly in 2006 and moved to Kazakhstan in 2008. She went to China to deregister her household registration and nullify her Chinese citizenship on March 17, 2018. However, she was questioned on her arrival and forcibly given up her Kazakhstan citizenship.
Victim's location
Nylqy (Nileke) County, Yili Kazkah Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained not in detention
Likely (or given) reason for detention not in detention
Victim's status under house arrest
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100023769982530/videos /194478661354465/&show_text=1&width=261
Entry created: 2018-11-05 Last updated: 2018-11-05 Latest status update: 2018-04-22 400. Anargul Muhtarhan (阿那日古丽·木克达日汗)
Chinese ID: 654221198511050629 (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: 34 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Jan. 2017 - Mar. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Unknown, but with a verified identity. (acquaintance)
Testimony 2|3|4: Zhalgas Erbergen, born in 2005, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (son)
Testimony 5: Orynbek Koksebek, Kazakhstan citizen, a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang. (detained together)
Testimony 6: Erbaqyt Otarbai, a truck driver and Kazakhstan citizen, who spent about 2 years in Xinjiang after returning there in 2017. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations. (detained together)
About the victim
Anargul Muhtarhan (阿纳尔古丽*木克达尔汗) received her Kazakhstan citizenship on September 18, 2013. She went to China in May 2017. Her husband passed away after she went to China and she might not know her husband is dead.
DOB: November 5, 1985. Chinese ID: 654221198511050628. Kazakhstan PIN: 851105403229.
Address in China: Shaueshek (Tacheng) City, Xinjiang, China
Victim's location
Testimony 6: in Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
On March 25, 2017, her Kazakh passport was confiscated at Bakhty border crossing and she was put into re-education camp.
Testimony 4: She's allegedly been released from the camp on January 6, 2019, with another source indicating that she had to renounce her Kazakhstan citizenship. Testimony 6: she returned to Kazakhstan at some point [in 2019, presumably]. She was previously held in the same camp as Erbaqyt and Orynbek Koksebek [presumably in the former retirement home].
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 1: from her ex-husband
Testimony 2: from Orynbek Koksebek, who was in the same camp.
Testimony 5-6: they were detained together.
Additional information
Testimony 4: her husband died in July 2017 (she still has not received the news).
Supplementary materials
Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-38p7nqfEM Testimony 4-5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7OWM4a1TMg Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc Testimony 1: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /442893772787677/&show_text=1&width=450 Testimony 2: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /518564805220573/&show_text=1&width=450
Entry created: 2018-11-08 Last updated: 2020-06-20 Latest status update: 2020-02-18 453. Erbaqyt Otarbai
Chinese ID: 65432419????????O? (Kaba)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|phone/computer, "registration issues" Health status: has problems Profession: driver
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1: Amanzhan Seiit, a businessman from Tacheng City and a citizen of Kazakhstan since 2002. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent 2 months in a camp despite being a foreign citizen. (detained together)
Testimony 2*: Gene A. Bunin, independent scholar and curator of shahit.biz. (friend)
Testimony 3*: Erbaqyt Otarbai, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (the victim)
Testimony 4: Erbaqyt Otarbai, a truck driver and Kazakhstan citizen, who spent about 2 years in Xinjiang after returning there in 2017. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations. (the victim)
Testimony 5*: Amanzhan Seiit, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (detained together)
Testimony 6: Erbaqyt Otarbai, as reported by The New Yorker. (the victim)
About the victim
Erbaqyt Otarbai is originally from Qaba County in Altay. He first came to Kazakhstan in 2009, prior to moving there in 2014, and obtaining citizenship in 2017. After being dismissed from a Chinese oil company in 2014, he started working as a businessman and a driver (driving taxis and trucks).
Victim's location
Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
He went to China on May 23, 2017, crossing the border at Qorghas and having his passport confiscated. He was originally told that he could have it back when he went back to Kazakhstan, but this turned out to not be the case when Erbaqyt asked for it a few days later. As a result, he found a truck-driving job in Xinjiang while he stayed at his parents' house. On August 16-17, 2017, he got a phone call telling him to come to the Koktogai police station. After a relatively short interrogation about his links to Kazakhstan, he was let go and started a delivery from Koktogai to Urumqi that evening. The next day, policemen who had been to Koktogai and followed him to Urumqi arrested him and took him to Tacheng City, where he would be interrogated at the Xincheng police station.
Following the interrogation, he was taken to the county hospital and underwent a series of tests, before being taken to a detention center, where he would spend over 3 months.
On November 22, 2017, he was transferred to a camp [the former rural home for the aged]. On January 2, 2018, he would be taken to a hospital and have his appendix removed, before being taken back to camp on January 17, 2018.
In mid-March 2018, he was interrogated by people from State Security and the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. On March 17, he and over 100 inmates were transferred to another camp, which Erbaqyt refers to as a "prison" [the facility on Horse Racetrack Road, which effectively resembles a typical detention center more than a camp/prison].
On April 17, 2018, he was taken for an interrogation, where he'd be asked if he had family in Kazakhstan (people with strong links to Kazakhstan were being released then). However, instead of being released, he would be transferred to yet another facility, which appears to have been another camp but essentially prison-like in appearance (Erbaqyt does not refer to it as a "camp").
On September 3, 2018, he was transferred to yet another prison-like facility, where he'd be held with many religious people (imams and others detained for religious reasons). In October 2018, they started to hold court hearings, with him being summoned and sentenced to 7 years in prison. However, instead of being sent to a real prison, he was transferred back to the original camp on November 23, 2018.
Here, they would be divided into vocational classes, with Erbaqyt opting for the clothes making course, as he thought it would be freer as they'd be in a factory [the factory was a recently constructed building in the southwestern corner of the compound]. On December 22-23, he was released from the camp altogether, with the local neighborhood administration having him live in its dormitory building while the procedures for him to return to Kazakhstan were being completed (his parents-in-law refused to take him in).
During the next half-year, he would live there and work as a cook for the work brigade next door, later taking a job as a driver, delivering noodles to various clients. He also worked for a few days as a truck driver.
In May 2019, he obtained permission to visit his parents in Altay, but after spending one day there would be told that he could now return to Kazakhstan. On May 23, he finally left China.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
In the trial that took place while he was in extrajudicial detention, he was sentenced to 7 years for using WhatsApp (as indicated by IJOP).
During the initial arrest, a police officer also told him that there was some problem with his household registration. Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan, where he is undergoing treatment for certain health issues.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Amanzhan was cellmates with Erbaqyt for a brief period of time, and knows about him from there.
Erbaqyt's is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Mention in the Prospect: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/big-brother-vs-chinas-uighurs
New Yorker feature: https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/china-xinjiang-prison-state-uighur-detention-camp s-prisoner-testimony
Eyewitness account
[The following is an adapted first-person account, based on the victim’s interview at the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization in Almaty, Kazakhstan.]
In the beginning, I thought I might keep silent. However, after thinking about how they’ve destroyed my family, I decided to speak up.
I'm from Qaba County in the Altay region and my wife is from Tarbagatai. We got married in 2009, and I also moved my household registration from Altay to Tarbagatai that year, buying a house there. In 2011, we divorced because of some problems with her family. For the sake of our children, we got remarried in 2013.
At the time, I was travelling back and forth between the two countries, working for a Chinese oil company. My salary was over 270000 tenge and the job wasn't that hard, but the locals got only 40000-80000, depending on the kind of work. Seeing this, I pointed out that it was unfair and was dismissed. That was in November 2014. Then I started doing various odd jobs – things like driving a taxi and petty trading.
In May 2017, my father got sick. I had applied for Kazakhstan citizenship at the end of 2016, and by January 2017 it was ready – the only thing I had left to do was sign some paper. However, I wanted to go back to China to see my father first. When I crossed the Korgas border on May 23, 2017, two Kazakh guys – one of them was named Zharqyn – came and asked me to hand in my Chinese passport and my Kazakhstan green card. When I told them that I wasn’t planning to stay long, they told me that I could fill out an application form and get the documents back when it came time to return to Kazakhstan. They also asked why I was crossing at Korgas, after seeing my passport and seeing that I had crossed at the Bakhty border before.
I then went to Urumqi so as to fly to Altai and get there quicker. There (in Urumqi), the police checked my documents and my mobile phone.
After visiting my father, I called the police again and asked for my passport back. They told me that I could come to the local police office to pick it up. When I got there, however, they said that I could not get my passport back just then, even after my explaining to them that my house was in Kazakhstan and that I didn't have a house in China. So, I went back to my father's house in Altai the next morning, and ended up taking a job as a truck driver for an ore mining company.
On August 17, I got a phone call telling me to come to the police station in Koktogai. When I got there, they took away my phone, after which an Uyghur guy came in and starting speaking to me in Chinese. It was an underground room with the walls made of some soft material. There was a tiger chair in the room. They started interrogating me. One of the interrogators was Han and one was Uyghur.
The first question was why I had gone to Kazakhstan. They also asked if I prayed. I told them that I wasn't a devout Muslim, as I drank and used profanity from time to time. The whole thing lasted about an hour, after which they said that I could go. When I asked for my phone back, they said that they couldn’t return it to me that day, and would contact me the day after.
I then returned to the truck area and started the trip I was supposed to make. It was around ten in the evening, and there were two other trucks. When we were about 20 kilometers from Urumqi City, my truck got a flat tire and we pulled over. While we were changing the tire, a car stopped by, with the person inside telling me that I needed to wait at the yard where the ore was unloaded. When it was my turn to unload the cargo, the guard there told me that a few policemen were looking for me.
They asked me why I had a household registration both in Buryltogai (Altai) and in Tarbagatai. I told them that my hukou had been in Buryltogai before I moved to Tarbagatai. They asked me to file an application to have my Buryltogai registration cancelled, and asked that I come with them. When I said that my phone was still in Koktogai, they told me that they had brought it with them – they had visited Koktogai and then went to Urumqi to look for me.
They took me to Tacheng City, and we got to the New City police station (新城派出所) at around midnight. There was a tiger chair in the room there, too, and this time I’d be seated in it, with my ankles and wrists shackled. A Kazakh guy there told me that, since there were cameras inside, I couldn’t really ask him whatever I wanted to. Then they started the interrogation, saying that I had installed WhatsApp on my phone. I explained that it was normal to have that in Kazakhstan and that it didn't work in China anyway. They then asked if I had visited other countries and with whom I had been in contact while in Kazakhstan.
After this, I was handcuffed, shackled, and hooded and taken to the Tarbagatai Regional People's Hospital. It was about two in the morning then. I was taken to a room and had a check-up, which required my going to a number of other rooms. Being hooded, I couldn't see the places I was taken to. From there, I’d be taken back to the police station, where they told me that I would be taken to a prison. They took my blood sample before transferring me.
When we got to the prison [pre-trial detention center], the armed staff member there said that they couldn’t just receive everyone and that they only took criminals – the two sides then had a quarrel. The Kazakh guy asked me to wait outside while they discussed – I would hear them mention the “political and legal affairs commission” (政法委) and the “national security team” (国保队). Afterwards, they brought me inside.
One of the staff at the prison was a Kyrgyz guy. He asked me if I knew where I was, then said that it was a prison and hit me over the head with a (metal) stick, leading to bleeding and, later, a scar. As my face was covered in blood, they shackled me with 7-kilo fetters. The people in the cell were real criminals of different ethnic groups – Han Chinese, Uyghur, Hui, and a Kazakh. A cruel Han criminal, the “boss”, asked me some questions. Later, the Kyrgyz guy would take me to the washroom and ask me to wash off my blood stains. A prison doctor sprinkled some powder on the injuries I had suffered. Then, they gave me a steamed bun and fried carrots and transferred me to Cell No. 12 (the one before was No. 15).
Here, there were Uyghurs, Hui, and Kazakhs. Some were shackled – mainly the Hui but also a few Uyghurs. One Uyghur guy, Dilshat, had been imprisoned years earlier for taking drugs, and now found himself here anew. Another Uyghur guy was there for buying a ticket to Turkey. A Kazakh was imprisoned for studying in Kazakhstan. When they heard that I was there for using WhatsApp, they told me that I wouldn’t be released. At that point, I was still thinking that they wouldn’t hold me any longer than three days.
We were given carrot leaves, potato peels, and other grassy stuff as our meals, together with a steamed bun that was only half cooked. I refused to eat it. They saw this through the camera and were ready to punish all of us, but I told them that it was just me who refused.
The next day, I was summoned to an interrogation room. My passport, green card, phone, wallet, and bank card were on the table, and they asked me if they were mine. They asked for the password to the phone. I pleaded with them to let me wire some money to my wife's account through WeChat and they let me. When I asked about when I would be released, they said that they didn’t know.
At one point, I was so hungry that, at around four in the morning, I shouted and asked for bread, which resulted in the guard calling some other guards and me being beaten with an artificial-leather stick. Those guys were Kazakh. They said that Ma [a guard’s surname] would come soon and I’d be beaten up. I told them I was hungry. One of them, a guy named Zhalyn, said that I should be more submissive. Again I’d be in the washroom, with them using their electric prods to hit the water as I was washing my face, which resulted in me getting electrocuted and being taken back to the cell. The guys in the cell also told me that I should be more submissive and just always say "yes", or I’d end up hurting myself.
On November 22, 2017, after I had spent 98 days there, they told us during lunchtime that we would have our lunch at a re-education camp. There were 21 of us – Kazakhs and a few Uyghurs. They called our names and we lined up in the hall. We were hooded, handcuffed with our hands behind our backs, and fettered. There were two auxiliary police officers (协警) holding each of us, and you’d have two people put into each police minivan with four auxiliary police officers. One of them was a Kazakh guy whose name I forget (my memory is not good now, as I was given injections twice). He told me that the camp was better than the prison. At the prison, I had been wearing a yellow uniform, the blue uniforms intended for the real criminals.
At the camp, they took off our hoods and unlocked the fetters, then handed out spoons, dishes, and slippers, before bringing us T-shirts and pants. I was taken to Room No. 8 on the second floor. It was warm there, and there were four beds inside. After some time, two Kazakh guys came in, one eating a steamed bun and the other eating something pickled. I was given some steamed buns and some food. I had weighed 97 kilos before being taken to that prison, but, as I learned from a medical exam, was down to 71 when I got to the camp.
For the first ten days, they’d turn the lights off at midnight, switching them on at around 6:30-7 in the morning, at which point you’d get up. Each day, we would study for 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours in the afternoon, and then do another 2 hours of review in the evening. We learned Chinese pinyin and how to count. Some of the people there were in their eighties, with the youngest being nineteen. Ninety percent of them were Kazakh and a few were Uyghur. I started having classes after about ten days of my arrival there. The women would sit in the middle row of the classroom, while the older male inmates would sit in the front, together with handicapped people who had problems with their hearing or sight, for example. At night, we had some opportunities for idle chatter, and so I’d learn what they were there for. Some had either visited or moved to Kazakhstan, while others had used WhatsApp, had used their ID cards to help their Kazakhstani clients get a Chinese SIM card, had visited mosques, had prayed, had their marriages officiated in a mosque… There was one Kazakh guy – he’s in Kazakhstan now and I don't want to say his name – who had ended up there for buying a house for his child in Kazakhstan. We couldn’t really look at each other when we talked. Instead, we’d talk while looking at our books.
They told us that the number of people at the “school” would increase, and that we would start [taking turns] guarding each other at night. They told us that there’d be a new wave of inmates – people who had done business in Kazakhstan or with Kazakhstan, in Turkey or with Turkey. They said that all Kazakhs in Tacheng City might be detained.
We were allowed to shower once a week – a hot shower – and the room was clean. However, starting from the end of November and beginning of December 2017, they would bring at least 20 people, all Kazakhs, to the facility each day. We started hearing that the neighboring rooms were being filled with people and, about six days later, they brought six new people to our room, which until then had been shared by four of us. They told us that we would have to share our beds or sleep on the floor. It was tile flooring, but warm since the heating was just underneath. As there were a lot of old people, I ended up sleeping under the bed. (Those old people are in Kazakhstan now.) We didn't have enough blankets and pillows, though. Later, they changed the beds to bunk beds, and I would sleep on the top bunk. They stopped switching the light off at night, and we started taking turns guarding each other.
At noon, we’d be given two hours to sleep, after which we’d have to make our beds like they do in the army: square-shaped. If you failed to do so, you would be punished. The food there was better than in the prison. Because 10 people would be staying in a room of 20 square meters, they had us get anti-flu shots.
There was one guy named Tursyn, who was sent to the camp for missing a Monday-morning flag raising ceremony. He was in his late forties. He died in the camp. It was said that he died of a heart problem, but I think that he was beaten to death.
In the prison [the detention center prior to the camp, likely], there was a woman who is in Kazakhstan now. She had to wear 3-kilo manacles. There was a woman named Anargul, who is in Kazakhstan now. We were in the same prison [unclear if he means the camp or the detention center]. Anargul Muhtarhan. She lives in Urzhar, East Kazakhstan. She was a Kazakhstan citizen when she was detained. We were in the same class.
There was another woman, Ainur, who was a Kazakhstan citizen as well.
Orynbek Koksebek, with whom I’d share a room, came in December (2017). He said that he had come to China to visit his hometown. He was a Kazakhstan citizen, and would say that he’d be out of there soon, on Monday, because he just needed to get one final stamp (on some document). I also thought he’d be released, being a Kazakhstan citizen, and so told him to get in touch with my family after he was and to tell them what was actually happening. He promised to do so.
They divided us into three different categories. I was put into “puban” (普班, “the standard class”). They gave us vests of three different colors – yellow for the lightest group, red for the strictest. The other one was sky blue. Let me return to the classroom. The old men and women sat in the front row. There were about 40 people in our class. Most of them were young – those who were educated, including some teachers. There were those who had worked for the government, even the deputy head of the county. They divided us into three levels – the highest, the middle, and the illiterate (文盲). Orynbek was in the illiterate class. There were bars that separated us from the teachers.
On January 1 (2018), I felt a pain on the right side of my stomach, told the teacher, and then went to the doctor on the second floor. There were Kazakh doctors in the camp. I explained to them how I felt, and they gave me pills. However, the next morning, on the way to the classroom, I felt a stabbing pain in that same area and collapsed. They dragged me into the classroom and called the doctor. A Han doctor came and asked me to leave the room, but I couldn't walk from the pain. He thought that I was faking it. I explained that no, it was real. Two auxiliary police officers then helped me. Again they’d give me some pills and take me back to my room. I wouldn't have any appetite for lunch that day.
In the evening, it started to hurt again, and I called the guard so that he could summon the doctor. One came, from the county-level hospital, and asked that I be taken to the hospital immediately. As I was walking down the stairs, I again started to feel unbearable pain. Later, in the hospital, they would tell me that my appendix had ruptured.
I was brought to the hospital by ambulance. Actually, when I was electrocuted and had water poured on me on October 12, 2017 [in the detention center], I remember being taken by ambulance also. When I came to (that time), I was already on my fourth infusion bottle, and would learn that I had been brought there in shackles. I just remembered this – that’s why I thought I’d mention it. Anyway, let me continue with the appendicitis thing.
In the hospital, they decided to do an operation immediately. I got an anesthetic, but it didn’t seem to work, and I could feel the pain. There was something like a mirror on the ceiling there, and I could actually see my internal organs while they were operating on me. I’d be there for five days. They were shocked upon seeing that my intestine had become so thin, and said that I wasn't eating well. I’d then be fed through a tube in my nose.
My sister, who was living in Shanghai, came to visit me. As it turned out, this was her fourth attempt to do so, and she had been refused all previous times. She then signed a document to get permission to look after me at the hospital. Cadres from the neighborhood administration would also take turns guarding me. All in all, my sister would end up staying with me for about ten days. I was in the hospital from January 2 to January 17, 2018.
A woman from the neighborhood administration was charged with taking me back to the camp. It was called the “Tacheng Prefecture Vocational Education Training Center” in Chinese (塔城地区职业教育培训中心). On our way, I was allowed to buy some candy and cookies, as we were taking a taxi to the camp, although these things wouldn't be allowed inside. The woman was actually surprised, saying that she didn't know it was so strict there.
After entering, I’d need to place my feet on this special footprint thing on the floor, standing on it while placing my hands on the analogous handprint things on the wall, while the authorities did a body search. Then they ordered to have me taken away (to my room). That’s when I said goodbye to the woman who had brought me over. I could feel that she was confused, not having really understood the kind of place that she was taking me to. I asked her to take those things (candy, cookies) with her. Without letting me finish, the guards took me to my room, and there I’d see Orynbek and the others. They told me that they had thought I was released. I then lay on the bed, while Orynbek massaged my arms and legs. Then, they would reshuffle us, and I’d be taken to another room. Here, I had Uyghur and Hui roommates.
Because I had undergone the operation, they would bring me soup with pieces of meat in it – really red meat. I didn’t feel comfortable having soup with meat while everyone else was eating vegetables and steamed buns. So, I asked for a bigger portion, intending to share it with the others. Although I was scolded by the auxiliary police for asking, they ultimately agreed to provide a big portion of soup every day.
After a while, we started to attend classes again and I was once more transferred to another room. That’s where I saw Amanzhan Seiit. There were 10 beds and 16 people, and Aman would sleep on the floor under the bed. He wasn’t the only one who slept on the floor. Luckily, they offered me a top bunk because of my operation. The guy who offered it was an Uyghur man named Away, who had been in the same prison [detention center] as I was before the camp. He told me that he had heard a lot about me and had wanted to meet me. He was the designated person in charge for that room.
At the beginning of March 2018, I was told that a few people from State Security and the Political and Legal Affairs Commission had come to question me. So I was handcuffed and taken to a room where two young people – a man and a woman, both ethnic minorities – were waiting for me. The woman was Kazakh. They ordered me to only answer their questions.
“When did you move to Kazakhstan?” the man asked.
“I first came to Kazakhstan in 2009,” I answered.
“When did you *move* to Kazakhstan?” the woman repeated.
“In 2014.”
Then they asked me where my wife and children were, if they had obtained Kazakh citizenship, and other things along that line. How could I know about those things when I wasn’t even allowed to contact them, I asked? To which the man warned me once more to just give exact answers to his questions.
Then two guards came in and were ordered to handcuff me, with the male interrogator telling me that my wife would be sent to camp as well. I said that there were certain questions I had the right to not answer. He said that I didn't have any such rights and that he was the law there.
The next day, they suddenly read out a list of names that had both me and Aman on it. We were given black bags that we put our belongings into, including the textbooks. Then our hands were handcuffed behind our backs and our legs were fettered, with each person’s leg chained to another’s. We were hooded and made to kneel, with the auxiliary police greatly outnumbering the detainees – two officers for every one of us. From what I was able to see, there were over ten police minivans and some buses. We were then transferred to another place. It was March 17. There were over a hundred people transferred.
It was really cold in the new place, as the construction had not been completed yet. There, there were only two classes. Arman Duman was there – he was our class head (学习委员). He had been living in Astana and was already a Kazakhstan citizen when they detained him. He’s back in Astana now. Arman and I were in the same class but not in the same room.
The room there housed 40 people, and the beds were triple-bunk, the oldest inmates sleeping on the bottom and the youngest on the very top. There were seven sets of bunk beds in total. The toilet was in the room and, since it was open, we could always smell the stink. There was a TV set, and we would watch Xi Jinping propaganda daily. We were given small plastic stools to sit on. Because there were only two classrooms, the classes there weren’t daily and we would take turns attending.
On April 12, we started hearing rumors that the Kazakhstan citizens would be released. That turned out to be true and they were. On April 17, they suddenly asked me if my family was in Kazakhstan, taking me to the room where we usually got water. We were afraid of being taken to that room because there weren’t any cameras there – that’s where the police would beat you.
Another Kazakh guy, Turdybek, whose wife and kids were living in Kazakhstan, was brought to that room as well. He had moved to Kazakhstan with his family after retirement, and would come back to China to sort out some land issues. A Han official who worked in the camp, Pan, asked him if he needed to go back to Kazakhstan. When Turdybek said yes, Pan slapped him and ordered the auxiliary police officers to take him away. Then it was my turn.
I was expecting the same, but instead he said that he had talked to my sister living in Shanghai when she visited me at the hospital, and asked me if my wife and children really were in Kazakhstan. I said yes, and then explained my situation. He let me return to my room, which woke up the people from their lunchtime nap.
After leaving our room (that day), I was ordered to stand facing the wall. Outside, a car arrived, and I was handcuffed and fettered, with both my hands and ankles chained. I counted the links – there were 7 for the (horizontal) chain linking my ankles and 11 for the (vertical) chain linking the handcuffs to the fetters. I was then transferred to another place, where the people with connections to Kazakhstan had all been gathered in the same room. I remember Erkin Qaidarbek and Erkin Qami, who had been living in Kazakhstan. I was in Cell No. 7. Later, I learned that Turdybek was also brought to that facility. There was also a young guy, 19 years old, named Ekibat. The classes we attended there were similar to the ones in the previous facility.
On September 3 (2018), Ekibat told me to look out the window – there were many cars driving into the compound. As we were watching them, my name was called and they gave me a black bag for all my things. I then went to the classroom to get my textbooks and saw Turdybek. Ultimately, about 80 of us were being taken to prison [still a detention center, most likely]. After having been transferred to and from so many places, I was now being taken to the No. 10 prison cell.
That room was full of people who had ended up there for such reasons as being imams, being religious, or having officiated marriages in a mosque. Later, around October (2018), they started to hold court hearings and to give out prison terms. I was called to a court hearing also. Inside, there were desks arranged in a U shape, with two representatives from the neighborhood administration and police station on the left, two representatives from the Political and Legal Affairs Commission and from State Security in the middle, and with the court representatives on the right. The inmate, handcuffed, would sit on the stool in the middle. And then the process began.
They started by turning on the camera. Then, the neighborhood-administration representative stood up and said: “Erbaqyt Otarbai is from the such-and-such neighborhood and, according to the IJOP platform (一体化系统), has been confirmed to have used WhatsApp, and is thus given a 7-year sentence.” After that, a person sitting in the middle section said that, thanks to the Party, the punishment given was a relatively light one, and then asked me to sign a document. I signed without even looking at what I was signing. They even asked me to have a look, but I just told them it was pointless (“看了有撒用？”). Then, the representative from the Political and Legal Affairs Commission stood up and read the verdict out loud, before informing me that one copy of the document would be sent to my family.
While being taken back to my room by two auxiliary police officers, I was suddenly called by one of the cadres, who told me that my family had come to see me. They had called my parents for the court hearing. My mom wasn’t wearing a headscarf – she told me that she wasn't allowed to. She was crying, and I calmed her down, saying that 7 years would pass as if they were 7 days. I told her to bring things like socks and clothes next time. Everything would continue without change, however, up until November 23.
On that day, all of the people in our room were taken back to the camp again. Again we were handcuffed and had black hoods put over our heads while they transferred us. This time, I would see major changes in the camp.
There were two new buildings – a three-story teaching building and a 4-story dormitory. The main gate was now at the back of the compound. The rooms were new, with eight people per room. The bunk beds, enough for the eight, were new too. However, the toilet was inside the room and open.
One of my roommates was a guy named Dauren. He had studied in Astana. Another guy's name was Ertis – he had travelled to Kazakhstan. An older guy, Erzhan, who might have been in his sixties, had been a teacher at a Party school. There was a Hui guy as well. Eight of us in total.
Again we’d have to take turns guarding each other in two-hour shifts every night. For sitting, they gave us small square-shaped plastic stools – red, blue, and yellow in color. There was a TV set that would play Xi Jinping's speeches. The food was really different this time around, as it wasn’t just the daily congee from before. Now there would sometimes be pilau (抓饭) and other better dishes. We were given (real) clothes. There wasn’t really any Hui there anymore – the majority was Kazakh, with some Uyghurs.
At one point, a tall and skinny Han man introduced himself to us, saying that he was our teacher and telling us to listen to him carefully, so that he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. He then said that they had started six different training courses: in bread baking, pastry making, hairdressing, electrode welding, clothes making, and singing and dancing. We would have to sing Communist songs too, which is something I was quite good at. I applied for the clothes making ones since I figured that it’d be freer there, as it was in a factory.
We were divided into these training classes at the end of November 2018. In my class, there were many women, and the maximum age was capped at 45 (all the classes had certain age restrictions). I couldn't count all of the equipment, but I think there were about 300 sewing machines, if I'm not mistaken. They were made in Japan and had been brought over from factories that had gone bankrupt. The hall we worked in was very big (about 100 meters by 200 meters), and had been erected really quickly, as evidenced by the metal structuring. The machines were arranged in four long rows. The materials we used were cheap ones.
There were two teachers, one young and one middle-aged. Both Han. They showed us how to sew, which for me was difficult as I was a truck driver and as the instructions on the machine were written in Japanese. One day, the teacher told us that journalists might come to visit soon, and that we needed to tell them that we had come there voluntarily. First, we sewed laces for pants and later were assigned to sew different components of pants for school uniforms.
Sometime later, we were again told that there’d be a “yanpan” (严判, “strict sentencing”). As I had already been given 7 years, that made me really scared. There were rumors that those who hadn’t been called to attend that court hearing for the “yanpan” would be taken to prison, and so I was worried, since I hadn’t been called to attend one.
One day, however, I was suddenly released, together with 11 other people. Among them was a guy whose nickname was “Ding Dan”. His real name was Lü Jian – he was an ethnic Russian and a Chinese citizen. His wife was a Kazakhstani, named Gulnar. There was also Qozharqan, who’s in East Kazakhstan now, and a guy named Erbol. We all had to write a pledge (保证书) that day, promising that we wouldn't disclose any information (about our experiences). They usually released 20 people a day, though on some days that number could get as high as 100.
It was on December 23, at 3 in the morning, that I was brought to the neighborhood administration for the neighborhood where I used to own an apartment. They took me to a room on the third floor. The head of the administration office showed me which bed to sleep in and told me that they’d bring me other necessities the following day. There weren’t any bars on the windows, and there wasn’t anyone caring when I went to the toilet or anything like that. There were two guards at the gate of the administration building. I couldn't believe that I had been freed. I couldn't sleep, thinking about it.
The next day, a Han woman named Wang Yixiang, who was in charge of several neighborhood-administration offices, had a meeting with us. I’d see many other Kazakhs who had been released there also. She said we needed to thank the Communist Party. She also mentioned that we would go back to Kazakhstan as that’s where our families were, but that it could take months to a year, and that we would be free during this time. In reality, however, a cadre from the neighborhood administration would (usually) accompany us.
On the same day, I learned from others that they were being allowed to stay at their relatives' homes in Tacheng. I then asked the deputy head of the neighborhood administration why I had to stay in the administration dormitory, to which she said that they had tried to convince my parents-in-law to take me in – trying some “ideological work” (思想工作) on them – but that my parents-in-law refused. She even showed me a video of them criticizing me for having violated the law. In the video, they said that I was a criminal who had deceived their daughter, making her leave her job and taking her to Kazakhstan.
So I would stay alone in that room. One room over was the work brigade (工作队), who would monitor around the clock all the cameras installed from the city to the border. My parents helped me financially during this time, sending money whenever I needed it. My phone had been delivered to my parents after I was first taken to prison [detention center], and my dad destroyed it soon after receiving it. And actually, the reason why I ultimately didn’t get a real 7-year prison term was because they couldn’t find that phone, in order to prove that I had sermons stored on there, as well as in my WhatsApp.
After my release, I wouldn’t be allowed to have a phone for the first three months. I also had to prepare food for the five people in the work brigade, as I was ordered to do so. In the beginning, I just helped the cook who was there, but later he left and the cook was now me. After three months, I told the neighborhood administration that I needed a job in order to support myself, and found one as a driver, delivering thin dried noodles (挂面) to different places.
I drove a minivan and the salary was supposed to be 3000RMB per month, though in the end I’d only get 1500RMB. They justified the cut by saying that what I collected from the clients was less than what I should have received, with the losses totaling 1500. Although, at the same time, they also found that it hadn't been my mistake – they just hadn’t considered that some clients had special discounts.
One day when I needed to enter a park, I learned that my ID card had been blacklisted, but the neighborhood-administration cadres would get it sorted out for me when I explained the issue. I had my status changed from “untrustworthy” (不放心人员) to “trustworthy” (放心人员). I quit the delivery job. Wanting to go to Kazakhstan, I went to the Bakhty border crossing, about 15 kilometers from Tacheng, having learned that there was a company importing sunflower seeds from Kazakhstan who needed a driver. So I went to meet the employer, whose nickname was “big-headed fish” (大头鱼), and he hired me for 6000RMB. I then got acquainted with a driver from Kazakhstan and asked if it was possible to sneak across the border in their truck. He told me that a Russian named Dima had tried something like that and had been found by border control – actually, that guy had been in the same prison as me.
I worked for a few days, got the pay, and quit, and then finally decided to go to Buryltogai – to my parents' house – after the neighborhood-administration cadres finally gave me permission. I flew there, with the help of my sister. After spending a night at the parents’, I got a phone call from the Tacheng neighborhood administration at lunchtime the next day. They asked me if I wanted to go back to Kazakhstan, saying that they had received the documents that would allow me to do so. I flew back to Tacheng, this time staying at my friend's house. I ended up staying for a few days – another stressful experience – with the neighborhood administration requiring me to stay at a hotel on the last day.
The next morning, I was brought to the border with Saltanat and Baqyt – elderly ladies who had also been in camp. They used to be teachers at the No. 2 middle school. After we crossed the border on the Kazakh side and were about to get on the bus there, the Han authorities again warned us not to say anything (about our experiences). As we entered Kazakhstan territory, we saw a crowd welcoming us with flowers. These were relatives of the other inmates.
After a stop at Urzhar, I finally went home. My son Nurtal didn’t recognize me. “Who’s this uncle who’s come to our house?” he asked my wife. I told him that I was his dad.
A human rights organization in Almaty is helping me with getting my health examined now. The doctors said that they found microbes in my blood.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc
Supplementary materials
Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc New Yorker 3D rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUyo5dxke8 Testimony 1: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /442893772787677/&show_text=1&width=450 back in Kazakhstan: https://shahit.biz/supp/453_2.jpeg
Entry created: 2018-11-12 Last updated: 2021-04-30 Latest status update: 2021-02-26 460. Raqyzhan Zeinolla (热合江·再努拉)
Chinese ID: 652723630122033 (Arishang)
Basic info
Age: 51 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"espionage" Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1|2|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|12|14|15|18|20: Parida Qabylbek, born in 1963, a citizen of Kazakhstan since 2004. (wife)
Testimony 3: Orazbek Alimbek, born in 1983, is a citizen of Kazakhstan. (relation unclear)
Testimony 11|13: Galym Raqyzhan, a volunteer at the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization, citizen of Kazakhstan. (son)
Testimony 16*: Galym Raqyzhan, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (son)
Testimony 17: Foreign Policy, an American news publication, founded in 1970 and focused on global affairs, current events, and domestic and international policy.
Testimony 19|21: Parida Qabylbek, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (wife)
Testimony 22: Abai.kz, a Kazakhstan news portal.
About the victim
Raqyzhan Zeinolla was a small-scale trader/businessman, and a married father of two. He emigrated to Kazakhstan and was later granted citizenship there in 2005.
Address in China: Harbuh Municipality, Arishang County, Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture.
Kazakhstan residence number: 010113875. Chinese passport number: 149013264 (expired in 2005).
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained Raqyzhan left Kazakhstan and traveled to China with his wife and two children in 2004 to visit relatives. He was then taken away by Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture's security bureau and given a 13-year prison sentence, accused of spying on China for Kazakhstan.
Having served his prison sentence, he was released on September 7, 2017, only to be transferred directly to a re-education camp. He remained in camp until his release on December 24, 2018, at which point he was placed under house arrest.
On September 9, 2019, Parida reported that he had been staying at his relatives' home for 8 months. According to her, Raqyzhan was blaming her for not getting his passport back, as he thought the local authorities were not returning it because she was appealing for him in Kazakhstan. In a later testimony, Parida said that her husband was blaming her for being a member of an illegal organization. He told her that "China is doing really well" and asked her to stop what she was doing in Kazakhstan. When she'd contact him, he would refuse to talk about anything else, other than the standard few words that "everything is great".
On April 9, 2021, he was finally able to return to Kazakhstan.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Originally accused of spying for Kazakhstan (in 2004).
Parida says he didn't work for the government in either China or Kazakhstan. He had only helped around 20 young people who wanted to study in Kazakhstan to get some documents and cross the border.
[The recent incarceration in camp is likely due to his having been in prison, as many were sent to camp for this reason.]
Victim's status
Reunited with his family in Kazakhstan.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The victim's wife and son were able to video chat with Raqyzhan after his release in late 2018, and it appears that they were able to maintain [likely sporadic] contact since.
In April 2021, they met him at the airport in Almaty.
Additional information
Mentioned in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/18/detainees-are-trickling-out-of-xinjiangs-camps/
Featured in Hola News [link no longer working]: https://holanews.kz/view/news/28285
Radio Azattyq report: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-xinjiang-husband/30379103.html
Abai.kz report: https://abai.kz/post/131521 Parida holds two people, named Bazyr and Monka, accountable for falsely accusing her husband.
At one point in 2020, she met with one of the embassy personnel in front of the Chinese Embassy in Astana. He told her she would get an answer in three weeks, while mentioning that her husband might have remarried or committed a crime. A staff member at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Margulan, told Parida that the Kazakh government has sent a note to China concerning his case. However, a person from the embassy said that they hadn't heard of his case.
The document given by the immigration office in reply to Parida's inquiry in 2013 states that her husband, Raqyzhan Zeinolla, had become a Kazakhstan citizen in 2005, in accordance with the President's N1302 Decree of March 12, 2004. The National Security Bureau of Kazakhstan also confirmed, in 2009, that her husband is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMXMfBUSrrI Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NKA4mpS1vU Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4sQIAgeYTc Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hmz5UI6YgY Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvYkBti0Oc0 Testimony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgFxmD0CIP4 Testimony 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdBL8Ay9m6c Testimony 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9wYvkvC0x8 Testimony 10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEcxpzuGVv0 Testimony 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygiwFznIAMg Testimony 12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbNsFCMaQjU Testimony 13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoggRziW4Ds Testimony 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P94lPSxqeXY Testimony 15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUjzlOsyO1c Testimony 18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA3cgUX-R1c Testimony 19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvQ6Sd8KZ0k Testimony 20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEUPbAx5iYw Testimony 1: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /442893772787677/&show_text=1&width=450 confirmation of KZ citizenship: https://shahit.biz/supp/460_19.jpg Chinese passport (blurry): https://shahit.biz/supp/460_20.png after return: https://shahit.biz/supp/460_21.jpg
Entry created: 2018-11-12 Last updated: 2021-04-09 Latest status update: 2021-04-09 495. Nazike Sheker
Chinese ID: 65????19????????E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: concentration camp When problems started: Apr. 2018 - June 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: education
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Nazerke Qazy
Victim's relation to testifier mother-in-law
About the victim
Nazike Shekerqyzy obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2012. She went to China on April 10, 2017. She was a teacher.
Victim's location not stated
When victim was detained
May 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status in the re-education camp
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4chO5A9SuOA
Entry created: 2018-11-14 Last updated: 2018-11-14 Latest status update: 2018-11-07 650. Nuriden Beisen
Chinese ID: 65232819900211??O? (Mori)
Basic info
Age: 28 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: house/town arrest When problems started: Apr. 2018 - June 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
Testimony 1|2|3: Shamsidin Beisen, a resident of Kazakhstan. (brother)
About the victim
Nuriden Beisenuly is a Kazakhstan citizen (obtained in July 2013). He had been living in Almaty Region in Kazakhstan. He went to China on January 16, 2017 to visit his relatives with his wife and daughter.
Address: Danangou Uzbek township (大南沟乌孜别克乡), Mori Kazakh autonomous county, Changji Region, Xinjiang, China
Kazakhstan ID number: 026703032.
Victim's location
[At his home in Changji, presumably.]
When victim was detained
Detained on June 5, 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention not stated
Victim's status
Testimony 3: released from the camp on December 26, 2018, now is under house arrest.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wawf49Arps0 Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfPG_no3mWw Testimony 1: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /449695642107490/&show_text=1&width=450
Entry created: 2018-11-19 Last updated: 2021-02-14 Latest status update: 2019-01-12 876. Uisin Baban
Chinese ID: 65232719780215??O? (Jimisar)
Basic info
Age: 40 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-3: Riza Qauanqyzy , mother of three, is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Testimony 4: Uisin Baban
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-3: husband
Testimony 4: himself
About the victim
Uisin Baban went to China in September 2017 to see his mother as she was seriously ill. However, local authorities took his passport and cut it. Spending 9 months under house arrest in China, he was finally allowed to visit abroad as a foreign citizen(He had applied for Kazakhstan citizenship and the document is ready to be obtained).
He was allowed to cross the border by Chinese side on June 24, 2018 but Kazakhstan border control didn't allow him to enter Kazakhstan, so he had to go back to Urumqi to get proof from the Kazakhstan passport-visa service in Urumqi. Fortunately with the help of the MFA of Kazakhstan he was able to set foot in Kazakhstan and become a Kazakh citizen.
DOB: February 15, 1978. Kazakh ID: 043319203. Kazakh PIN: 780215399158.
Victim's location
Originally from Zhemsary, Changji.
Now back in Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained not in detention
Likely (or given) reason for detention not in detention
Victim's status not in detention
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Victims among relatives
Qausar Kemenqan (1689), Bagdangul Kemenqan (1688), Aizada Qalysbek (8084), Arystanbek Zaken (2694), Zhezira Shariphan (1687), Qyzyrbek Asilbek (1686), Anihan Orazhan (2037), Shariphan Aqan (1685), Kadika Kapas (2034), Qalysbek Baban (8083), Ernar Zaken (2695)
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFGr7FGIXwM : https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php%3Fstory_fb id%3D456218978121823%26id%3D100012011741023&width=450 : https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /456314521445602/&show_text=1&width=450 : https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /459638551113199/&show_text=1&width=450
Entry created: 2018-11-26 Last updated: 2019-05-28 Latest status update: 2019-01-03 878. Turdakun Abylet
Chinese ID: 65302419831001??O? (Ulughchat)
Basic info
Age: 35 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kyrgyz Likely current location: Kizilsu Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues" Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Both testimonies are delivered by Muslihiddin Salimov, a Kyrgyz from Kyrgyzstan.
Victim's relation to testifier
The victim is Muslihiddin's friend.
About the victim
Turdakun Abylet is originally from Kizilsu's Ulughchat County. After coming to Kyrgyzstan in April 2015, he would go on to obtain Kyrgyz citizenship in 2017.
Victim's location
Presumably at his family's home in Ulughchat County, Kizilsu Prefecture.
When victim was detained
He returned to China after the Chinese authorities summoned him so that his father would be released from re-education camp. Turdakun was then detained in May 2017.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
According to Muslihiddin, not going through the de-registration process.
Victim's status
There has been a lot of confusion regarding his status.
Everyone agrees that he spent a prolonged amount of time (over a year) in a re-education camp. Then, in early December 2018, it was announced by the Committee in Support of the Chinese Kyrgyz - and reported by Radio Azattyk (https://www.azattyk.org/a/29662559.html) - that he was freed, but would stay at home to look after his sick father. The Committee mentioned that it would try to lobby the Kyrgyz government so as to get him his passport, allowing him to return to Kyrgyzstan. Specifically, the Committee wrote the following on a public forum:
"Freed last week [early December] as we learned. We talked to Abylet - he said that he needs to stay to take care of his sick father (we gather they were in detention together). But we're to follow up with the Kyrgyz authorities to have consular officers visit him, make sure he's got his passport and can leave PRC. If necessary evacuate him to the border post. They live just a few km away from Torugart pass."
However, a January 2019 article that followed soon after, in The Qazaq Times (https://qazaqtimes.com/en/article/54783), had the Committee claiming that Abylet's "release" had been staged. Nevertheless, later conversations between Gene A. Bunin and Committee members in the spring and summer of 2019 seemed to suggest that he was not in detention, though his prospects to return to Kyrgyzstan were not bright.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
On numerous occasions, Muslihiddin has reported having phone conversations with Turdakun, though it's not clear if all the updates to his case were obtained this way, as the Kyrgyz authorities also appear to have been involved.
Additional information
His case was previously mentioned in a Radio Free Asia story from August 2017 (https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/kyrgyz-08212017162912.html):
"He said that in some cases, Xinjiang police are even detaining citizens of Kyrgyzstan traveling to the region, citing the case of a young man named Tudahun, who had recently become a Kyrgyz national.
“He was detained as soon as he entered China a few weeks ago,” he said, adding that it was unclear what had happened to him."
---
This victim is also included in the list provided by the Committee in Support of the Chinese Kyrgyz: http://shahit.biz/supp/list_001.pdf
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCTCIOZWS4o Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5EYtv9dBeI Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_XRt_feBTY Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwU_gTJUSlo Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b0Ri46SrTQ news of "release": https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/Ulugqat/posts/212215203 040892&width=450 Kyrgyzstan citizen ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/878_7.png
Entry created: 2018-11-27 Last updated: 2019-05-20 Latest status update: 2019-06-15 915. Asqar Azatbek (阿斯哈·阿孜提别克)
Chinese ID: 654127197601180038 (Tekes)
Basic info
Age: 44 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: sentenced (20 years) When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"espionage", "fraud", "registration issues" Health status: has problems Profession: government
Testifying party
Testimony 1|2|3: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, a citizen of Kazakhstan. (relative)
Testimony 4: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, as reported by Taiwan Reporter. (relative)
Testimony 5: Qarlygash Diparova, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (aunt)
Testimony 6: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (relative)
Testimony 7: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, as reported by Total.kz. (relative)
Testimony 8: Qarlygash Diparova, as reported by Total.kz. (aunt)
Testimony 9: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, as reported by France 24. (relative)
Testimony 10: Anonymous, as reported by Radio Free Asia Mandarin. (relation unclear)
Testimony 11|14: Gauhar Mamyrkanovna Kurmangalieva, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (relative)
Testimony 12: Official court document, as used in court proceedings in the People's Republic of China.
Testimony 13: Oraz, as reported by Atazhurt Zhastary. (friend)
Testimony 15: Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reported by vlast.kz.
About the victim
Asqar Azatbek used to work for the National Immigration Administration in Ili, before retiring in April 2016 for health reasons. Migrating to Kazakhstan, he obtained Kazakhstani citizenship in 2017. He also formally renounced his Chinese citizenship.
Address in China: House No. 1, Series No. 2, Beiyuan Country Residences, 61 Airport Road, Ghulja City (伊宁市飞机场路61号北苑别墅区2排1号). Kazakhstan PIN: 760118000347. Chinese passport: E71985109.
Victim's location
Twin-Channel Village Detention Center (双渠村看守所) in Korgas County.
When victim was detained
On December 7, 2017, he went to the Qorghas International Center for Boundary Cooperation. According to a friend who was with him at the time, two jeeps pulled over close to them while they were in front of the Samuryq mall (on the Kazakhstan side of the cooperation zone), with 3-4 Chinese police getting out and coming down on Asqar, knocking him over. Putting his hands behind his back, they forced him to get into the car and effectively kidnapped him. (The official reply from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2020 confirms the time, place, and arrest, though it also adds that, according to its embassy in Beijing, the victim was detained on January 4, 2018.)
No news about his case would be available until an official court verdict was leaked to his relatives in Kazakhstan in January 2020.
According to the verdict - which makes no mention of the kidnapping or what happened to Asqar in the following 3 months - he was detained by the Qorghas County Public Security Bureau on March 10, 2018 on suspicion of fraud, before being formally arrested on March 23, 2018. He was then formally prosecuted on September 17, 2018, with the court decision date marked as December 9, 2018 (subject to appeal).
Likely (or given) reason for detention
The court verdict reports him as being guilty of "espionage" and fraud.
The pages related to the fraud charges are missing in the copy available here [for reasons unclear], but concluding remarks state that he had cheated people out of a total of ~1.7 million RMB.
The espionage charges come from his allegedly having taken a Kazakhstan consulate visa official, Daniyar Serikbayev, to visit some of the hydraulic stations and reservoirs in Ili. The verdict states - without evidence - that Serikbayev was actually a Kazakh spy and intelligence agent (not just a consulate visa-service worker), and that Asqar was quickly made aware of this by Serikbayev's peculiar interest in the water-conservation system, which the verdict states is a state secret and cannot be shown to foreigners ("and especially Kazakhstanis"). Asqar allegedly acted as a guide anyway, in return for visa favors, and thereby violated Article 110 of the criminal code (he is also stated as violating Articles 266, 61, 52, 53, 56, 64, and 69).
His migration to Kazakhstan and his obtaining Kazakhstan citizenship are thus presented in the verdict as fleeing from potential investigation in China.
Asqar is also presented as allegedly admitting all of this [it is not clear how "clean" such a confession is, however, especially given his 3-month kidnapping prior to being officially detained].
In its formal reply in February 2020, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that it has received no news of the espionage and fraud charges, and that the latest news is from its embassy in Beijing, which said that Asqar was detained for having dual citizenship and for thereby violating China's citizenship law. The MFA also confirms that (a) the victim cancelled his Chinese citizenship and (b) did not take part in Kazakhstan national security's operations. However, diplomatic demands to the Chinese side regarding his case have gone unanswered.
Victim's status
The court verdict says that Asqar has been sentenced to 20 years of prison, with 5 years of deprivation of political rights (in addition to a 50000RMB fine).
As of February 2020, it appears that he has yet to be transferred to a formal prison, however, as sources have reported to his relative in Kazakhstan that he is still being held at a detention center.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The eyewitness account of Asqar's disappearance was obtained from his friend Oraz, who went to the Qorghas economic cooperation zone with the victim.
The court verdict is an official document from the Xinjiang judicial system.
The Kazakhstan MFA presumably got its information through official channels.
Additional information
Coverage by vlast.kz, together with the formal reply from the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs: https://vlast.kz/obsshestvo/42132-kto-ukral-askara-azatbeka.html
Media coverage of this case: http://archive.is/bp6cR (Total.kz) https://observers.france24.com/en/20190703-kazakhstan-china-xinjiang-families-detained https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/kazakh-missing-12272017141959.html
What appears to be an investment fund owned by Asqar in the Qorghas cooperation zone: http://archive.is/sT9gu
Official communication(s)
Source: Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
------
The consular-services department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan has reviewed your complaint regarding the case of your relative A. Azatbek, who was arrested on December 7, 2017 by the PRC public-security authorities at the Korgas International Center for Boundary Cooperation. Please be informed of the following:
According to the Kazakhstan embassy in Beijing, Chinese citizen Asqar Azatbek was detained by the Chinese public-security authorities on January 4, 2018 for having violated the “Chinese citizenship law” (dual citizenship) and is under investigation.
In accordance with the “Republic of Kazakhstan citizenship” law, Asqar Azatbek obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in October 2017. He renounced his People’s Republic of China citizenship on September 27, 2017 through the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan, and the Chinese embassy placed the “cancelled” stamp in his passport.
In relation to this, the ministry sent a diplomatic demand to China’s MFA on January 15, 2018, so as to, as accorded by the provisions of the “Agreement on mutual legal assistance”, look into the Azatbek issue and agree on a meeting between the individual in question and the Kazakhstan consul.
However, the Chinese side did not reply to this demand, and so the ministry addressed the Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan with the request to organize a meeting between the Kazakhstan consul and A. Azatbek, and to have him returned to Kazakhstan in 2018. Another diplomatic demand was sent on December 6. There has still been no reply from the Chinese side.
In what concerns the information provided in your statement, the Kazakhstan side has not received any information from the Chinese judicial bodies regarding Azatbek being sentenced to 20 years on the charges of “spying for Kazakhstan” and “fraud”.
Additionally, as per your demand, a demand has been sent to the competent authorities in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The competent authority has informed that there is no information regarding A. Azatbek being part of the Kazakhstan national security’s operations.
Taking into account your request, as well as with the intention to protect the rights and interests of A. Azatbek, the Kazakhstan MFA plans to send another diplomatic demand to the Chinese side and to raise his issue at the upcoming bilateral consular meetings.
You will be informed in reply to your demand.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlfWQZeZGL4 Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDEu4RVcBGg Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hF70PPtTLA Testimony 1: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /503086636768390/&show_text=1&width=450 Testimony 5: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/notes/gene-bunin/the-stor ies-of-kazakhstan-citizens-arrested-in-china/2244405605791286/&width=450 Testimony 6: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/notes/gene-bunin/relative s-of-those-arrested-in-china-are-asking-for-help/2246761502222363/&width=450 Testimony 13: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /498949057182148/&show_text=1&width=300 Chinese passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/915_6.png Testimony 12 (p. 4-5 missing): https://shahit.biz/supp/915_8.pdf official communication(s): https://shahit.biz/supp/comm_915.png
Entry created: 2018-11-29 Last updated: 2021-01-31 Latest status update: 2020-02-28 974. Arman Magdiev
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: July 2018 - Sep. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"drug trafficking" Health status: --- Profession: driver
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Ainur Asylbekova
Victim's relation to testifier husband
About the victim
Magdiyev Arman Ryshanovich, was born on November 9, 1970 in Karagandy Region, Kazakhstan. His Kazakh ID number is 036848209. A truck driver, he transports factory equipment within CIS countries. August 10, 2018, he went to Qorgas border, as usual, then he phoned his wife to inform her that he had already entered the Chinese territory. He phoned again on August 11, and said everything was ready, he would come back in a day or two. However, since the 13th he has been out of touch. His wife went to the Chinese police to ask his whereabouts, and they confirmed that he was arrested by the Chinese police but refused to give any more information.
He lived in Baskanshy, Panfilov District, Almaty Region.
Victim's location presumably in Qorgas(Huoerguosi), Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained
August 12-13, 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention
"drug trafficking"
Victim's status in detention
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? from the victim's friend
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials original testimony: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/100012011741023/videos /514563942287326/&show_text=1&width=450 additional Facebook testimony: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php%3Fstory_fb id%3D514605822283138%26id%3D100012011741023&width=450 translation of relevant Azattyq article: https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://www.facebook.com/notes/gene-bunin/relative s-of-those-arrested-in-china-are-asking-for-help/2246761502222363/&width=450
Entry created: 2018-12-03 Last updated: 2019-06-26 Latest status update: 2018-08-25 1043. Myrzash Moldahan
Chinese ID: 65????19620920??O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 56 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: documents withheld When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Baqytnur Myrzash, born in September 15, 1985, citizen of Kazakhstan. Lives in Kazakhstan with her mother Aigul Majit, brother Sanat Myrzash and sister Qasset Myrzash.
Victim's relation to testifier
Father
About the victim
Myrzash Moldahan, citizen of Kazakhstan. Born in September 20, 1962, immigrated to Kazakhstan and received citizenship in 2011. Kazakh ID no. 031407615
Victim's location
Unclear
When victim was detained
In 2014 when he went back to China, the officials confiscated his documents and he has not been allowed to come back to Kazakhstan since
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unclear
Victim's status
Prevented from going to Kazakhstan
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? They maintain telephone contact on a weekly or monthy basis. However, Myrzash told Baqytnur that she needs to avoid political conversations with him and can only reach him once the policemen are gone for lunch
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z337ScY9vug
Entry created: 2018-12-06 Last updated: 2018-12-06 Latest status update: 2018-10-23 1121. Gulqyz Turganbai (古丽克孜·吐尔哈依)
Chinese ID: 652722198009050027 (Jing)
Basic info
Age: 38 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Bortala Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-5: Dilmurat Aitbai, born on December 5,1974, is a Kazakhstan citizen. His Kazakh ID number is 042443119.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-5: spouse
About the victim
Gulqyz Turganbai, born on September 5, 1980, and a mother of two, went to China on November 23, 2017, to visit her sick mother. She had applied for Kazakhstan citizenship before going to China and her documents are ready to obtain according to her husband. Her Chinese ID number is 652722198009050027.
Victim's location
Jinghe County, Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained
March 20, 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status
Testimony 5: released from the camp on December 26, 2018.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
The victim's children, Dilnar Dilmurat (daughter) and Ershat Dilmurat (son), are struggling without their mother.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX26Ucswark Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9knhev5Aoc Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfGIgMGybSQ Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65UkvVjNxwU Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt_XG5gQbDE Chinese ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/1121_6.png
Entry created: 2018-12-08 Last updated: 2018-12-08 Latest status update: 2019-01-12 1403. Rizwangul Ehmet
Chinese ID: 652101200???????E? (Turpan)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Turpan Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): relative(s)|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Enwer Ehmet, an Uyghur activist now living in Turkey. (brother)
Testimony 2: Meryem Abdulhemid, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (mother)
Testimony 3: Meryem Abdulhemid, as reported by The Diplomat. (mother)
About the victim
Rizwangul Exmet, Uyghur woman from Turpan. She is currently in detention, and whereabouts unknown.
Testimony 2: she is 16.
Testimony 3: she has three siblings, all in Turkey, and is now a Turkish citizen herself.
Victim's location
[Presumably in Turpan.]
When victim was detained
Testimony 2: her father was detained in April 2017, and she was forced to rely on relatives' help to survive.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Testimony 2: she was put in difficult circumstances because of her father being detained.
Victim's status
Testimony 1: in detention.
Testimony 2 doesn't seem to indicate that she's in detention. How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 2: via relatives.
Additional information
Her father and 5 other relatives are in detention, younger children are homeless.
Radio Free Asia coverage (Testimony 2): https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/anilar-namayish-03092020154237.html
The Diplomat coverage (Testimony 3): https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/the-missing-uyghur-children/
Victims among relatives
Ehmet Abdurehim (1404), Patigul Ibrahim (1398)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrnhlosqX4w Testimony 1 (English): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gRxhiVy7yQ photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/1403_3.jpg
Entry created: 2018-12-18 Last updated: 2021-06-08 Latest status update: 2020-03-09 1461. Nurbaqyt Nasihat
Chinese ID: 652328198307140035 (Mori)
Basic info
Age: 35 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): challenging authority|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-6: Maria Nasihat was born in 1955.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-6: brother
About the victim
Nurbaqyt Nasihat was born on July 14, 1983. His Kazakhstan PIN is 830714399083. He was imprisoned for going to Beijing, China to appeal for farmland disputes in Mulei county in Xinjiang as a representative of 14000 people during Xinjingping's "Crackdown on corruptions" campaign in 2013.
Testimony 6: the testifier says that he's a Kazakhstan citizen.
Address: Mulei county, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
Victim's location
[Presumably in Changji.]
When victim was detained
On July 3 2013 he was sent to Xinjiang from Beijing where he spent 8 months in jail in Mulei county, Changji. Then he was summoned to court, where he was given a 2 year 8 month sentence. He was released on November 16, 2016. After one month, in December, he was arrested again and sent to re-education camp, where he taught Chinese.
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear Victim's status
The testifier has recently received a phone call from a foreign journalist that her brother was released from the camp on December 24, 2018, yet no information about his whereabouts now.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? through relatives
Additional information
The police from Mulei Kazakh Autonomous county went to Beijing and brought him back in a black hood and imprisoned him. Some 300 hundred ethnic Kazakhs were imprisoned together with him. Some of them have become disabled after being beaten by the police.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqzpPOx73zs Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2PurxfAW8A Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBC5XKtWupw Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJufl_Uhcq4 Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cKnL1ev86E appeal letter: https://shahit.biz/supp/1461_6.png Testimony 6: https://shahit.biz/supp/1461_7.mp3
Entry created: 2018-12-20 Last updated: 2019-09-21 Latest status update: 2019-06-19 1540. Qairat Samarkan
Chinese ID: 654323198???????O? (Burultokay)
Basic info
Age: 18-35 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|related to going abroad, "disturbing public order", "two-faced" Health status: has problems Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Qairat Samarkan, as reported by Associated Press. (the victim)
Testimony 2: Qairat Samarkan, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (the victim)
Testimony 3: Qairat Samarkan, as reported by The Guardian. (the victim)
Testimony 4: Qairat Samarkan, as reported by Deutsche Welle. (the victim)
About the victim
Qairat Samarkan is a businessman, in his thirties, and a native of Altay's Burultokay County.
He initially immigrated to Kazakhstan in 2009 and applied for Kazakhstan citizenship soon after, though it would be 7-8 years before his application was approved.
Victim's location
Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
He went to China in October 2017 to sell his house and land. On November 20, 2017, he was called in by the local police and interrogated for three days, prior to being sent to a camp in Burultokay's Qaramagai Municipality.
He would stay there until February 2018, when he was released after attempting suicide by running headfirst into a wall. He was allowed to return to Kazakhstan soon after, claiming that he had a wife and child there (this was a lie).
Likely (or given) reason for detention In his earlier testimonies, Qairat mentions that he belonged to the categories of detainees who had been abroad and had "violated public order".
In a later interview to Deutsche Welle, he says that he was accused of being "two-faced".
Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
This is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Media coverage and mentions: https://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b https://thediplomat.com/2018/06/carefully-kazakhstan-confronts-china-about-kazakhs-in-xinjiang-re-educ ation-camps/ https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakh-recounts-reeducation-in-western-chinese-camp/29194106.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/13/uighur-xinjiang https://www.dw.com/en/chinas-xinjiang-muslims-live-in-fear-of-disappearing-into-camps/a-45525980 https://believermag.com/weather-reports-voices-from-xinjiang/
Eyewitness account
[The following eyewitness account has been assembled from a number of interviews that the victim gave to various media outlets and organizations in 2018.]
Qairat Samarkan is a native of Altay’s Burultokay County, moving to Kazakhstan in May 2009 and applying for citizenship there, though he would only receive it much later.
In October 2017, he made a trip to Xinjiang to sell his house and land. The trip coincided with the Communist Party’s 19th National Congress – a particularly sensitive time. On November 20, he would be summoned by the local police and interrogated.
Qairat:
“‘What do you do in Kazakhstan? What family do you have there? Do you read namaz?’ they’d ask me for three days and three nights, without letting me sleep. After which they decided to sentence me to 3-9 months of detention. On the fourth day, they took me by car to the Burultokay regional ‘political education center’. They made me undress, handcuffed and shackled me, and led me to the cell. There, they shaved my head and told me that I would be held in a military-style cell. I was detained in a cell of the Burultokay region ‘political education center’. There, we’d study materials related to the recent 19th congress, which took place in 2017. They taught us to not disclose China’s state secrets, to not divide ourselves by ethnic group, to not talk about China’s internal affairs, to not be Muslim.”
The camp he was held at was in Burultokay’s Qaramagai Municipality (喀拉玛盖镇). Qairat mentions being tortured as a result of initially refusing to yield to the military discipline:
“I had to make the bed in a very precise manner, like in the military. The head of the facility had an inspection in the morning and he told me to redo the bed three times. I then threw my blanket onto the floor. Four guards came, and they took me to [a room] where I was put in a metal outfit. In that outfit you can't bend your head for 12 hours and it was hot and horrible and after that, I became very obedient.”
Qairat remembers having to learn a number of new rules and regulations, including:
1) Islamic greetings were now forbidden, and one had to say the Mandarin “ni hao” instead; 2) Ethnic minority (e.g., Uyghur, Kazakh) restaurants could no longer use Uyghur/Kazakh writing in their signs and could only use Chinese characters; 3) Speaking Uyghur or Kazakh in public places was now forbidden; 4) Kazakh/Uyghur-language schools were now banned; 5) It was forbidden to communicate with people from the “26 sensitive countries” (e.g., Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey); 6) Ethnic identities would no longer be listed on the third-generation ID cards; 7) Ethnic minorities were no longer allowed to set up their own chat groups or forums on WeChat, QQ, or websites in general, and anyone who dared would be given 2 years of political education; 8) Han and Kazakhs were financially encouraged by the government to intermarry, with a reward of 90000RMB and the permission to apply for big loans; 9) Ordinary people violating these rules or leaking state secrets would be heavily punished; 10) If a person sold their private property, half of the amount would go to the state; 11) People who had been abroad had to hand over their passports to the authorities for “safekeeping”.
In general, the days started at 6 with a search/cleaning of the room and breakfast, followed by two hours of political study (including the “spirit of the 19th congress” and China’s ethnic and religious policies). The inmates would sing communist songs, chant “Long live Xi Jinping!”, and do military-style training in the afternoon. Towards the evening, they would write accounts of their day, as well as self-criticisms.
There were around fifteen people in his cell, and as Qairat would find out, in addition to the local Uyghurs and Kazakhs detained in the camps, there were also Kazakhstan citizens.
Qairat:
“The detainees would be split into three categories. The first category was for those who had some connection to religion, the second for those having previously gone abroad, and the third for those who violated public order. All of the detainees were Muslim. I was being held for having gone abroad and violated public order.”
“Violating public order” could simply mean using Xinjiang time, missing compulsory flag raising ceremonies, or not speaking Chinese. About 200 detainees were suspected of being “religious extremists”.
According to Qairat, the detainees would have to pay 20RMB per day for their meals.
“We had to pay out of our own pockets and didn’t have enough. All you’d get was two pieces of bread and rice gruel. There was no other, better, food. They’d monitor all this strictly, in accordance with the law.”
The number of detainees at his facility, by Qairat’s estimate, went into the thousands. “So many Kazakhs are being detained there, in those atrocious and miserable conditions! All in all, there were 5700 detainees, over 3000 of whom were Kazakh, 2000 were Uyghurs, and 200 were Hui. There were two there who had already obtained Kazakhstan citizenship – one from Oskemen in East Kazakhstan and one from East Kazakhstan’s Zharminsky district. One of them was named Esbolat. One of them’s been sentenced to 7 years, and the other to 4, their entire crime being that they had lived in Kazakhstan and hadn’t deregistered in China. Women are kept separate in the political education camps, so I can’t say how many of them there were.”
On February 20, 2018, Qairat would be released, which he believes was due to his psychological health.
“I was released because I tried to kill myself. They would often line up the detainees in a row, but once my legs were so tired that I just couldn’t bear standing anymore. At my wits’ end, I ran headfirst into a wall. I’d be unconscious for 15 minutes. The police arrived, and when I came to I was in a hospital. They released me after that. After the release, the officers told me that I didn’t have the right to leave the country, so I lied and told them that I had a wife and child in Kazakhstan. As a result, they gave me permission to visit Kazakhstan for a month. I obtained citizenship as soon as I arrived – this just happened to be the time when my citizenship was due to be issued.”
Source: https://shahit.biz/supp/1540_1.pdf
Supplementary materials press releases (2017-2018): https://shahit.biz/supp/1540_1.pdf
Entry created: 2018-12-23 Last updated: 2020-04-17 Latest status update: 2018-12-23 1565. Adilgazy Muqai (阿地力阿孜·木哈依)
Chinese ID: 650203197211180076 (Karamay)
Basic info
Age: 47 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: sentenced (9 years) When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): related to religion|"extremism", "terrorism", "disturbing public order" Health status: has problems Profession: energy
Testifying party
Testimony 1|2|4|5|6|7|9|11: Bikamal Kaken, born in 1976, now a citizen of Kazakhstan. (wife)
Testimony 3: Bulbulhan Karipkan, a citizen of Kazakhstan. (mother)
Testimony 8: Bikamal Kaken, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (wife)
Testimony 10: Bikamal Kaken, as reported by Deutsche Presse-Agentur. (wife)
Testimony 12: Bikamal Kaken, as reported by The Believer. (wife)
Testimony 13: Zhang Xiao, as reported by Global Times.
Testimony 14: Urumqi police records, as reported by Yael Grauer.
About the victim
Adilgazy Muqai is a Chinese citizen who, nevertheless, has been approved for Kazakhstan citizenship since September 2017. Prior to retiring in 2016 because of health reasons, he used to work in the oil industry in Karamay, generating steam for the oil pumps.
He and his wife, Bikamal, have two (underage) children together.
Address: No. 7, Building 30, Beidou Neighborhood, Karamay District, Karamay City, Xinjiang (新疆克拉玛依市克拉玛依区北斗小区30幢楼房7号).
Victim's location
[Unclear, as he has been sentenced.]
When victim was detained He was initially arrested on his way back from Kazakhstan on May 2, 2017 at the Korgas border crossing, originally being sent to a camp in Karamay proper, but later being transferred to one in the Maytagh district as the first was too crowded. At some point after the Chinese spring festival of 2019, he was reportedly transferred to another facility (unclear if camp or a detention center).
As reported by Zhang Xiao of the Chinese mission in Kazakhstan, he was given a 9-year prison sentence by the Karamay City Intermediate People's Court in December 2019.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
According to his wife, he was detained because of their having an alcohol-free wedding party back in 2013. A copy of the Quran was also found at their house.
His wife also believes that her giving birth to their children in Kazakhstan may be a reason, as officials reportedly came to the victim's sister's house and told the sister that the wife of the victim was as guilty as the victim, because the wife had given birth to their children in Kazakhstan.
The official reasons, as reported by the Chinese ambassador in Kazakhstan, were "encouraging acts of extremist terrorism" and "disturbing the region's social order" (the victim was allegedly found "acquiring, storing, and spreading a large number of video and audio files which encouraged terrorism and religious extremism").
Victim's status
Serving a prison sentence.
He presumably has certain health issues, as signaled by his early retirement.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Bikamal and Bulbulhan presumably learned about the detention and subsequent transfers from relatives.
Zhang Xiao is a Chinese ambassador and presumably got the information from the Xinjiang government directly.
Additional information
The victim was written about, albeit anonymously, by dpa international (http://www.dpa-international.com/topic/energy-executives-abroad-ensnared-china-xinjiang-crackdown-1 90221-99-75048):
"Kaken Bikamal’s husband, who also used to work for a Chinese oil and gas company in Kazakhstan, was detained in April 2017 in Karamay, she said.
"They said if he didn’t go to China, they would stop paying his salary," Bikamal said.
Now, she and the couple’s two young daughters support themselves with the help of relatives and local nonprofits." ---
Bikamal's interview to The Believer (https://believermag.com/weather-reports-voices-from-xinjiang/):
In China, my husband was working at the Karamay oil fields. He’s a steam worker, generating steam for the oil pumps.
When he retired, we moved to Kazakhstan with our two children. Then my daughter was born here, in December 2016. In May 2017, when she was six months old, his oil field boss called and said he had to come back to China. There was no reason. You have to visit us, they said. Just come. He did as he was told. As soon as he crossed the border at Khorgos, he was taken away. First they took him back to the oil fields. From there, they took him to a reeducation camp nearby—the Maytau camp. The police brought my husband’s bag to his sister’s and told her they were interrogating him. She knew this meant he was heading to study.
It’s been two years now and he hasn’t been released. I heard he was transferred to a second camp, and as far as I know, he’s still there. The irony is that not long before he went to China, he’d submitted our paperwork for Kazakh citizenship. As of September 2017, we’re all Kazakh citizens! But I can’t even tell him. I have no communication with my husband. Last winter I heard that my mother-in-law had a meeting with him at the camp. But there was a mesh screen between them. They could speak only by phone. I asked her why he was detained, but no one knows. We don’t have any debts. We have no legal issues. I just can’t think of a reason.
My relatives did tell me this: They said officials came to my husband’s sister’s house and told them I was as guilty as my husband, due to the fact that I gave birth to my child in Kazakhstan, and implied that if I came to China, I, too, would be detained. They simply said it was the wrong thing to do, to go to Kazakhstan and have a child.
State-media report(s)
Source: https://archive.vn/P7BRG
CHINESE AMBASSADOR TO KAZAKHSTAN REFUTES US EMBASSY’S SMEARING OF XINJIANG
By Liu Xin and Deng Xiaoci
Source: Global Times
Published: 2020/6/26
It is an old trick for the US to use amateur "actors" to play victims and smear the vocational education and training centers in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Zhang Xiao, Chinese Ambassador to Kazakhstan, told the Global Times, responding to the US Embassy in Kazakhstan's recent attempt to release stories on its website and social media accounts, claiming they are "interviews" from people or relatives of those who have been mistreated in Xinjiang.
The series of stories as well as the recent Uygur bill signed by the US President Donald Trump last week, attempts to "hype up" the topic of Xinjiang, interfere with China's domestic affairs, creates obstacles for harmony in Xinjiang among the region's ethnic groups, restricts the region's economic development and stability, and sows unnecessary discord between China and its Central Asian neighbors, Ambassador Zhang said. The stories, titled "Voices from Xinjiang," are from those who claim they or their relatives were detained in "training centers" in Xinjiang; for example, one woman, named Bikamal, now based in Kazakhstan, claims her husband is being detained in "camps" in Xinjiang.
Ambassador Zhang clarified that Bikamal's husband, Adelhaze, was actually sentenced to prison for nine years in December 2019 by the Intermediate People's Court in Karamay for encouraging acts of extremist terrorism and disturbing the region's social order. In fact, Adelhaze was found acquiring, storing, and spreading a large number of video and audio files which encouraged terrorism and religious extremism, violating China's Criminal Law.
Bikamal claimed her husband was detained in a "camp," but the fact is her husband is serving his prison sentence, and was never in any training center.
Bikamal and her husband were never fined for having more than two children, and US Embassy's propaganda is "full of lies, without a single sentence of truth," Ambassador Zhang said, noting that it updated "my knowledge of its [the US'] bottom line."
For a long time, the US has crowned itself as defenders of human rights, falsely pretending to care about Muslims from around the world; however, it has only stained the world with Muslim mistreatment. For example, after the Cold War, the US has taken its military operations to many Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, bringing pain and suffering to Muslims (and non-Muslims) around the world. In fact, the majority of those individuals detained and tortured in Guantanamo Bay are Muslims, Zhang noted.
The current US administration, since it took office in 2016, only continued to block those wishing to enter the US from Muslim countries, and its policies reflect the country's anti-Muslim agenda, vigorously trampling international laws. It's hard to believe that a country that is so very anti-Muslim would truly argue that it cares about the human rights of Muslims in Xinjiang, several thousands of miles away.
With its domestic failure of dealing with COVID-19, and endless protests and social disputes, the US has ramped up its efforts to cover Xinjiang-related topics in an attempt to shift its troubles from domestic issues to blaming China, distracting the public's attention, Zhang noted.
The Chinese government's moves to curb terrorism and extremism have earned the support of people from all ethnic groups in Xinjiang as well as across the country; and they also benefit those countries in Central Asia, as well as the international community, the Ambassador said.
In fact, there have not been any violent attacks in Xinjiang for nearly three years, and with only three deaths related to COVID-19 among the region's 24 million people, there is clear evidence that the region has been developing, and its people's health is guaranteed.
"No matter how hard the US hypes up topics related to Xinjiang, it can never change the Chinese government's resolution to crack down on terrorism and extremism; it can never impede China's development, nor can it drive a wedge between China and Central Asian countries. It can only hurt itself," Ambassador Zhang said.
Victims among relatives
Nurdana Qabden (1566) Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZr_XjF4888 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvxp4lWwpd0 Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFXugIcAXvk Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TqrIVdVp5w Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNdKZ7ci7q4 Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9J9KfyR_dE Testimony 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MIjzkvC-QY Testimony 8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iij60hJ9lLM Testimony 11: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz8RLCQJrkY Kazakh + Chinese IDs: https://shahit.biz/supp/1565_7.png Testimony 9: https://shahit.biz/supp/1565_11.png
Entry created: 2018-12-23 Last updated: 2020-06-28 Latest status update: 2020-08-07 1725. Orynbek Koksebek
Chinese ID: 65420119800214??O? (Chochek)
Basic info
Age: 39 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues", "disloyalty", other Health status: has problems Profession: farmwork, herding
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1: Orynbek Koksebek, Kazakhstan citizen, a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang. (the victim)
Testimony 2: Orynbek Koksebek, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (the victim)
Testimony 3: Orynbek Koksebek, as reported by Washington Post. (the victim)
Testimony 4: Orynbek Koksebek, as reported by The Believer. (the victim)
Testimony 5*: Gene A. Bunin, independent scholar and curator of shahit.biz. (colleague)
Testimony 6: Erbaqyt Otarbai, a truck driver and Kazakhstan citizen, who spent about 2 years in Xinjiang after returning there in 2017. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations. (detained together)
About the victim
Orynbek Koksebek, an ethnic Kazakh from Moiyntal Village (莫音塔勒村) in Tacheng Prefecture. His younger brother, Hamza, is a known actor, and the reason for why Orynbek originally came to Kazakhstan. After taking a liking to the country, he became a citizen in 2005. His entire family immigrated over by 2007, settling down in the Urzhar region. In China, he had only done a few years of school and grew up mostly on a farm, never learning Chinese and struggling with written Kazakh.
In late 2017, he went to the Tacheng region because he wanted to see his hometown, stayed about a month, but was taken to a camp on the way back to Kazakhstan, to be released in the April of 2018.
He has since become one of the outspoken ex-detainees, often appearing in local and foreign media.
Victim's location
Now back in Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained Detained on December 15, 2017, while trying to leave China and return to Kazakhstan. According to him, he was taken to see local authorities, asked to sign a form that re-established his Chinese registration, and was then accused of having dual citizenship.
He was released on April 12, 2018, after which he returned to Urzhar, kept a low profile for a month or so, but then started speaking about his experiences to media.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Not 100% clear, but it seems that he was being accused of dual citizenship and "betraying" China in favor of Kazakhstan.
Victim's status
Released and out of China.
He has complained of post-trauma issues that resulted from his time in the camp, his inability to trust anyone, and some physical pain.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
This is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Mention in the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/new-evidence-emerges-that-china-is-forcing-muslim s-into-reeducation-camps/2018/08/10/1d6d2f64-8dce-11e8-9b0d-749fb254bc3d_story.html
Radio Azattyq coverage: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-medical-assistance-former-prisoners-from-xinjiang/30180666.html
The New Yorker feature: https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/china-xinjiang-prison-state-uighur-detention-camp s-prisoner-testimony
Eyewitness account
[The following is the victim's first-person account to The Believer magazine, as reported by Ben Mauk and as adapted here with a slight correction - the victim was taken to a room (indoors) when the local officers decided to put him in a hole and pour water on him, and not into a yard outside.]
I don’t want to spend a long time talking to you.
I was born in 1980 in a village in the district of Chuguchak. That’s the old Mongolian name; the Chinese call it Tacheng. It’s in the mountains that cross into Kazakhstan. Until 2009, there was a border crossing near my village, but I never used it. Until I was twenty-four years old, I never left home. I helped my father in his pasture. We raised sheep and cows. I didn’t get much schooling. I first came to Kazakhstan in 2004, just to see the country. My younger brother was studying in the arts school in Almaty. He wanted to become an actor. I liked it here, and the next year I decided to come back for good. It was easy back then to cross the border. Kazakhstan was encouraging oralman [ethnic Kazakhs returning to their historical homeland] to move, part of its repopulation efforts. I came back, renounced my Chinese citizenship, and became a citizen of Kazakhstan.
In 2016, my father died. He was one of twelve children. [Takes an old passport photo of his father from his wallet and places it on the table.] Most lived in China, but he had two siblings here, my uncles. I decided to go with them to China to the "zhetisi", the ceremony that takes place on the seventh day after a funeral, to reunite with his other siblings. The crossing was easy. I saw my relatives at the banquet. We ate lamb and horse. After the ceremony, I came back to Kazakhstan. I had no trouble.
A year passed. In November 2017, I decided to go to China again. My father’s funeral had put me in mind of old friends from my village. I wanted to see some of the people I hadn’t managed to see at the ceremony. This time was different. At the border, I was stopped. They explained that my records of having left China were gone. An official from the Chinese government, an ethnic Kazakh, explained that this was a serious issue. He asked for a document explaining the absence of this document. Well, I didn’t have one. So they took my passport. They told me I was holding dual citizenship. This is a crime in China, they said. I didn’t have the paper in my records that confirmed I’d renounced my citizenship. They said they didn’t have any records at all.
After a long time, maybe twenty-four hours, I was allowed to enter China. I was shaken up by the encounter. I thought that I should probably go directly back to Kazakhstan, but I couldn’t. They had taken my passport and told me they would see about my case. As I was leaving, the interrogator took me aside. If anyone asks why you came to China, he told me, tell them you wanted to settle your registration and check on your citizenship status. Whatever you do, don’t tell anyone that you were trying to visit family or friends. I don’t know if he was trying to help me or deceive me — I couldn’t understand any of it — but later on, I took his advice.
I went to my hometown and stayed with my relatives. The village was unrecognizable. My own family was afraid even to talk to me. It was nothing like the year before. Every day, local authorities would come by and explain to me that I couldn’t leave China until I presented this paper renouncing my citizenship, which I’d been told I would receive soon. One day they asked me to sign a document. They said if I signed it, they would restore my registration, cancel it officially, and I could go back to Kazakhstan. So I signed.
After some weeks, on December 15, the ethnic Kazakh interrogator from the border came to see me. He was accompanied by three Han Chinese men. They said my paperwork had gone through. They were going to take me to the border. But first, they said, you need to be examined by a doctor.
They drove me to a large office building. It was shiny like a hospital and everyone was wearing white medical clothing. But it was also somehow different from a hospital — I couldn’t tell you exactly how. We went from room to room for different examinations. There were several doctors, male and female, and they checked all over my body, from head to toe, the women as well as the men. I don’t speak Chinese. I couldn’t understand what people were saying. I wanted to resist, but I was afraid.
We finally left the facility that wasn’t a hospital, and they drove me to a multistory building surrounded by walls and barbed wire. It looked like a prison. I knew we were in the middle of Chuguchak somewhere, but I didn’t know more than that. When I saw the building, something took place inside of me. I didn’t believe they were taking me to the border. I took my phone out of my pocket and tried to make a call — I don’t even know who I was going to call — but they saw what I was doing and took my phone away. As we entered the building, they told me simply that I had to go through a check-in process here. Afterward, they said, you will be set free. They asked for my shirt. Then my pants. I was left in my underwear.
I was angry and afraid. I didn’t know what to think. I asked them: Should I stay here in my underwear? Without any clothes? They brought me some clothes — camp clothes. I dressed, and as I dressed I kept shouting at them: What are you doing to me? I am a Kazakh citizen! They cuffed my hands behind my back and cuffed my legs together. I said I hadn’t committed any crime. Prove that I committed a crime, I said.
They put me in a room with eight or nine other people, all Uighur or Dungan. I couldn’t understand any of them; I don’t speak their languages. There was a single table, a sink, a toilet, a metal door, and several small plastic chairs, the kind of chairs you see in schools, for children. Above the door was a camera. I came to know this room well. For the next week, I didn’t leave it. During the day, I sat in a chair, my arms and legs cuffed together. At night, they uncuffed my arms but not my legs. My legs were always cuffed, with just enough chain to move them if I had to walk, although I wasn’t allowed to walk except in the morning, to wash myself at the sink. I wouldn’t have been able to run if I’d tried. Seven days and nights passed like that.
The other men in the room avoided me. They seemed afraid of me. I don’t know why. But I was the only one whose arms and legs were restrained. The rest of them were free. Every day they left to go somewhere, while I stayed behind. I wasn’t allowed to move from the chair where I was sitting. In the morning I washed my face, but otherwise there was no bathing. I was alone all day. And no one, or almost no one, talked to me.
On the morning of the seventh day, two people came and took me away. We went to a new room, much like the first. We were alone. One of the interrogators was either Kazakh or Uighur; the other was Chinese. The first asked whether I knew why I was there. First of all, he said, you’ve been using dual citizenship, and that’s a crime. Second, you are a traitor. And third, you have a debt in China.
None of it was true. I told them I don’t have dual citizenship. I’m a Kazakh citizen. What’s more, I told them, I don’t have any debts in China. I left a long time ago. I don’t owe China anything and China doesn’t owe me anything. I repeated what the man at the border had advised me to say, that I came only to check on my registration status. I don’t know why I’m here, I told them. I didn’t commit any crime. I asked them to prove to me that I committed a crime.
He told me not to ask questions. We ask the questions, he said. Then the real interrogation began. Tell us who you communicated with in Kazakhstan. What did you do? Do you pray? Do you uphold the Islamic rules? How many times a day do you pray? I told them the truth: I don’t practice Islam, I don’t read the Koran, I don’t have much education. I herd cattle. I’ll tell you what I told them, which is that I didn’t have schooling. I spent two years in first grade and then graduated second grade, and that was it. I was helping my father in the winter and summer pastures after that. My father gave me my education, and that’s what I told them. If you look at the records, I said, you’ll see that I’m telling the truth. But they didn’t believe me. Uneducated people don’t go to Kazakhstan, he said.
Then they asked me all about my property, my cattle. I told them my home address in Kazakhstan. I told them that I was married in 2008 and divorced in 2009, that I had no kids. I told them everything I could think of, my whole life story. I answered all of their questions. But they kept telling me I was a traitor.
They took me to a different room. It was December and cold. There was a hole in the ground. It was taller than a man. "If you don’t understand," they said, "we’ll make you understand." Then they put me in the hole. They brought a bucket of cold water and poured it on me. They had cuffed my hands and now told me to raise my hands over my head. But it was a narrow hole and I couldn’t move inside. I couldn’t raise my hands. Somehow, I lost consciousness.
When I woke up, I was back in my room. There was a Kazakh guy beside me. I’d never seen him before. He said, "If you want to stay healthy, admit everything."
I slept, I don’t know for how long. When I woke up again, there were two new prisoners. One was Kazakh, like me. He told me he had been detained for traveling to Kazakhstan. He’d gone to visit his wife and child. But I couldn’t find them, he said. The other guy was Dungan. He didn’t speak Kazakh. But the Kazakh guy told me that his mother had died, and that he’d organized a funeral in his village according to Islamic traditions. The police had accused him of being a Wahhabi and had taken him away. I still felt poorly from the hole, where I was told I’d spent the whole morning unconscious. Afterward, I had a fever. But the two Muslim guys — the Kazakh and the Dungan — helped me to recover. They watched over me.
Time passed, and people came and went from the cell all the time. All told, I spent thirty days in that room, including the week before the hole. Every day the men went out and I stayed behind in the cell, although now I had the Kazakh and the Dungan to keep me company. Every few days, four or five men would be moved out and new men would arrive. I remember a guy named Yerbakit, who had permanent residence in Kazakhstan but held Chinese citizenship. There was also Shunkyr, a professional athlete who had never visited Kazakhstan. A third man was called Bakbek. We didn’t talk much. I didn’t want them to get in trouble for talking to me. We didn’t say words like Allah. We never said Salaam aleichum. We were afraid.
Every Sunday our cell was searched. We all had to kneel and put our hands on top of our heads and look down as they tore the cell apart. We could see the guards’ pistols right at eye level. I don’t know what they were looking for. We would joke with one another that we should probably produce whatever it was we’d stolen, so that the searches would stop.
One day they took us all out and cut all our hair. Shaved our heads.
Once I asked my cellmates where they went every day. At first, nobody wanted to say. Then Yerbakit told me they were being taken to political classes. He said they learned Chinese sayings and songs by heart. Not long after that, one of our guards gave me some papers with three Chinese songs to learn myself. The words were in Chinese. I told them I couldn’t read Chinese, and they took the papers away. They gave me a notebook in which someone had written the songs in Kazakh [Arabic] script, and they told me to learn them by sound. One of the songs was an anthem. They told me it was the Chinese national anthem. The second was a song describing the current policy pursued by the Chinese leadership, an educational song. I never found out what the third song meant. We all had to learn them. The Dungan guy spoke Chinese and learned the songs quickly, but my Kazakh friend and I had a harder time. We used to cry together. We would hug each other and cry, and try to learn the songs by heart. I believe I will never forget those thirty days.
In mid-January, my two cellmates and I were finally allowed to attend classes with the others. We were placed in classes according to our level. Because I wasn’t educated, I was in a low level, with many women. It wasn’t just men in the camp; there were eighty or ninety women there, living separately. It was a big building, although I can’t tell you how big it was. They would count us off room by room, but never all together. They counted in the morning and the evening, the way you count your animals in the pasture. I remember on the third day I went to class, I found they had cut the women’s hair. They didn’t shave their heads like they did the men’s, but they cut their hair above their ears.
Of course, all the time I attended classes, I didn’t know what I was doing there. I discussed it again and again with my teachers. They said I was to study for a year and a half, but if I was unsuccessful, I would remain there in the camp for five years. I felt I would rather die. On several occasions, I contemplated suicide. Once, I even tried to strangle myself with a shirt in my room, but because there was a camera in the cell the guards came in and stopped me.
While in class, we could write letters to one another. I happened to know one girl, Anar, from my childhood village. At first, she pretended not to know me. There were two other women from my village in the camp who did the same. Then I wrote her a letter. Please forgive me, she wrote back. Of course I know you, but I said I didn’t. I was afraid. Why are you here?
Anar shared a bedroom with another girl, Ainur. The three of us would write letters and throw them to one another under the table during class. We talked through those letters. We made an entire world. In one letter I wrote about my feelings for this girl, Anar. Affectionate letters, you know. But at the end of February I was transferred to another prison. I never saw those girls again, and I haven’t heard anything about what’s happened to them.
Tell me again why you’re asking all of this. Who are you? I believe there are Chinese spies in Kazakhstan. When I was released, they told me: If you tell this story to anyone, you’ll be imprisoned again in China. I am doing this for my people, in the name of my Kazakh people. I’m the only one I know from my part of Xinjiang who has been released. The only one. And if I go back to prison, I won’t be sorry. My only crime in going to China was being a Kazakh. My second crime is that I’m telling the truth.
I don’t know if it’s any use telling you all this.
One day, seven of us were transferred. We were handcuffed and taken to the yard and told we were being taken to another camp. They searched us and cuffed every two people together and put us in a car. As we drove, I had the idea that we were being sentenced to death. Our heads were covered. I thought they were going to kill us. Instead, they only took us to another cell. It turned out to be a former military camp. We sat in more political classes, and my teachers again told me I would stay in this camp until I’d learned Mandarin Chinese. They told me to prepare to study for a year and a half. I was sometimes beaten in this second prison. I was asked to tell them things I didn’t understand. I thought I might be inside for the full five years.
Five days before my release, my interrogations became more frequent. Some lasted through the night into the early morning. During these interrogations, they asked only one question: Why did you come to China? They made me sign papers that they said would determine my fate—whether I would go back to Kazakhstan or remain in China — but I couldn’t understand what I was signing.
One day before my release, they sat me down and showed me photos of my relatives. They asked if I knew any of these people. At first I said no. I was afraid. We will make you remember them, they said. So I told them who they were: My mother, my cousin, my brother, and my father. Even my father was there, although he was dead.
When I saw these photos, I despaired. I thought my family had all been detained. The photos looked just like my own prisoner photos. [Removes from his wallet an ID card with a photo in which his head is shaved, along with two unlaminated versions of the same photograph, and places them next to the photograph of his father.] I didn’t know how else they could have gotten photographs of them all. I couldn’t understand it. My father died in 2016; my mother lives in Urzhar, in Kazakhstan. How did they have these photos of them? My first thought was that somehow they were all in the prison with me. All of my relatives from Kazakhstan, every one.
They waited while I identified each of my relatives. When I got to my father, they tore the photo in half and threw both halves in the dustbin. I cried that night until morning, thinking of my relatives somewhere in the prison, and not understanding anything that was going on.
The next day, they took me to the yard without warning. You will not take your notebook with you, they said — this notebook had all the contacts I’d made in prison — and you will not be able to say goodbye to your friends. They brought me to my cell. When I got there, I saw a prisoner I knew, Arman. He was from Astana. There was a sense of joy in the room. He was being released too. But I didn’t say anything to anyone. Arman and I were cuffed together and taken away by car. It was springtime. They drove us to the border.
Later, I counted the days of my detention: 125 days. Before they set us free, they made us commit ourselves to silence. If you say anything, they said, you will go to prison, even if you’re in Kazakhstan. I believed them at the time. I signed different papers that were placed before me. I was made to recite a pledge to Allah that I would not talk about what happened to me.
I believe that Allah will forgive me this oath I made in his name.
They drove us to the border. So now I’m here in Kazakhstan. And I’m tired.
Now I want you to write the truth without adding any lies.
Source: https://believermag.com/weather-reports-voices-from-xinjiang/
Supplementary materials appearance on Azattyq discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52OFaQFyIFE Testimony 6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc New Yorker 3D rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUyo5dxke8 Testimony 2: https://web.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https://web.facebook.com/notes/gene-bunin/it-was-like -being-in-hell-accounts-of-those-having-been-in-chinese-camps/2258348094397037/&width=450 Testimony 1 (interview): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_1.pdf audio interview (part 1): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_2.mp3 audio interview (part 2): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_3.mp3 audio interview (part 3): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_4.mp3 audio interview (part 4): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_5.mp3 audio interview (part 5): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_6.mp3 audio interview (part 6): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_7.mp3 audio interview (part 7): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_8.mp3 audio interview (part 8): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_9.mp3 audio interview (part 9): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_10.mp3 audio interview (part 10): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_11.mp3 audio interview (part 11): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_12.mp3 photo at Atajurt office (RTS): https://shahit.biz/supp/1725_17.png
Entry created: 2018-12-31 Last updated: 2021-02-25 Latest status update: 2020-01-24 1754. Qaraqat Abdesh
Chinese ID: 65432119880207??E? (Burchin)
Basic info
Age: 30 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: July 2018 - Sep. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Abdesh Muhametsagiuly is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 024368960.
Testimony 2: Talgar Omirzaq.
Testimony 3: Erzat Ahmettursun, born on March 20, 1988.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: daughter
Testimony 2: unclear
Testimony 3: friend's wife
About the victim
Qaraqat Abdeshqyzy, born on February 7, 1988, is a naturalized Kazakhstan citizen. She had been working in China with Kazakhstan passport and she came to Kazakhstan with her two Kazakhstan-born children in July 2018 and extended their Chinese visas and went back. However, they have been under house arrest since.
Address in China: Qatai village (哈太村), Oymok township (窝依莫克乡), Buerjin county, Aletai region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
Went back to China in March 2018. Two Han Chinese “volunteers” were living in her house during house arrest. [slight contradiction with her going to Kazakhstan in July 2018] Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status
Testimony 2: released from under house arrest and allowed to return to Kazakhstan at the beginning of January 2019.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
Her two children, who were born in Kazakhstan and are Kazakhstan citizens, were under house arrest as well.
Victims among relatives
Manapqan Zeinolla (1757), Erbolat Manapqan (1760), Erkesh Manapqan (1759), Bikesh Manapqan (1758), Muhtar Bekesh (1755), Aqerke Bekesh (1756)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV50bhA9j_A Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry9i8Mr3EmI Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK0laPXQ4vE
Entry created: 2019-01-01 Last updated: 2019-01-01 Latest status update: 2018-07-01 1755. Muhtar Bekesh
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Altay Status: house/town arrest When problems started: July 2018 - Sep. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Abdesh Muhametsagiuly is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 024368960.
Victim's relation to testifier grandson
About the victim
Muhtar Bekeshuly, born on October 31, 2013, is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's location
Buerjin county, Aletai region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained presumably August 2018
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status under house arrest
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information ---
Victims among relatives
Manapqan Zeinolla (1757), Erbolat Manapqan (1760), Erkesh Manapqan (1759), Bikesh Manapqan (1758), Qaraqat Abdesh (1754), Aqerke Bekesh (1756)
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV50bhA9j_A
Entry created: 2019-01-01 Last updated: 2019-01-01 Latest status update: 2018-12-31 1756. Aqerke Bekesh
Chinese ID: 654321200?0413??E? (Burchin)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: July 2018 - Sep. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Abdesh Muhametsagiuly is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 024368960.
Victim's relation to testifier granddaughter
About the victim
Aqerke Bekesh, born on April 13, is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Chinese address: Buerjin county, Aletai region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China.
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
Presumably put under house arrest in August 2018.
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status
Returned to Kazakhstan. [As witnessed by the Liberty Times report and her appearing in a February video at the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization.]
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
Reported in Liberty Times: https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/2723365
Victims among relatives
Manapqan Zeinolla (1757), Erbolat Manapqan (1760), Erkesh Manapqan (1759), Bikesh Manapqan (1758), Qaraqat Abdesh (1754), Muhtar Bekesh (1755)
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV50bhA9j_A photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/1756_2.jpg
Entry created: 2019-01-01 Last updated: 2019-08-12 Latest status update: 2019-03-11 1876. Qyzyr Malikazhy
Chinese ID: 65232719422032??O? (Jimisar)
Basic info
Age: 49 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: house/town arrest When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-2: Nurolla Qyzyr, born on April 4, 1976, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His iD number is 032712147.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-2: father
About the victim
Qyzyr Malikazhy, born on October 21, 1942, obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2012. His ID number is 032700045; his PIN is 421021300575. He went to China on September 20, 2016, to sell their real property and had his all documents confiscated by the local authorities.
Victim's location
Zhemsary county, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained under house arrest since September 2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status under house arrest
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
Testimony 2: Testifier has written letters of appeal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and has got replies three times and each time they ask his parents to go to the passport and visa service of kazakhstan in Urumqi, however, his parents are not allowed to leave the county where they have been staying.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XiNUY2zkE0 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cgikDnIVd4 Kazakh passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/1876_3.png
Entry created: 2019-01-03 Last updated: 2019-05-23 Latest status update: 2019-04-10 1877. Zobai Abilseit
Chinese ID: 65232719481110??E? (Jimisar)
Basic info
Age: 70 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: house/town arrest When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-2: Nurolla Qyzyr, born on April 4, 1976, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His iD number is 032712147.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-2: mother
About the victim
Zobai Abilseitqyzy, born on November 10, 1948, obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2012. Her ID number is 0326687305; her PIN is 481110402824. She went to China on September 20, 2016, to sell their real property and had all her documents confiscated by the local authorities.
Victim's location
Zhemsary county, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
When victim was detained under house arrest since September 2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention unclear
Victim's status under house arrest
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
Testimony 2: Testifier has written letters of appeal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and has got replies three times and each time they ask his parents to go to the passport and visa service of kazakhstan in Urumqi, however, his parents are not allowed to leave the county where they have been staying.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XiNUY2zkE0 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cgikDnIVd4 Kazakh passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/1877_3.png
Entry created: 2019-01-03 Last updated: 2019-05-23 Latest status update: 2019-04-10 2209. Gulbahar Jelilova
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: 55+ Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"terrorism" Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (the victim)
Testimony 2|5|6: Gulbahar Jelilova, an ethnic Uyghur from Kazakhstan, who was detained in multiple detention centers in Urumqi for over a year. (the victim)
Testimony 3: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by PBS. (the victim)
Testimony 4: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by Deutsche Welle. (the victim)
Testimony 7: Xinjiang Public Security, the government office in charge of public security and arrests.
Testimony 8: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by Apple Daily. (the victim)
Testimony 9: Watchout, a Taiwanese watchdog media outlet.
Testimony 10: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by La Presse. (the victim)
Testimony 11: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by NBC. (the victim)
Testimony 12: Gulbahar Jelilova, as reported by The Star. (the victim)
Testimony 13: Elijan Anayit, a spokesperson for the XUAR People's Government Information Office.
About the victim
Gulbahar Jelilova was born in Kazakhstan on April 4, 1964. After she and her husband divorced in 1996, she started a shuttle business between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan to support her children - buying women's accessories in Xinjiang and selling them in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan passport number: N09879874.
Victim's location Turkey.
When victim was detained
She was detained on May 22, 2017, a day after she crossed into China via the Korgas border crossing.
On the day of her arrest, she was taken to the police station for interrogation, before being transferred to the No. 3 (pre-trial) detention center in Urumqi. After three months, she was taken to the No. 2 detention center in Urumqi, and later to what she refers to as a "women's prison" [possibly a detention center, as she was never sentenced].
She was released in September 2018, which she believes was the result of relatives abroad appealing for her. After the release, she spent three days in a prison hospital, where she was given hearty meals to help recuperate. She was assigned a female police officer, who dyed her hair and did her makeup before she was allowed to board a plane overseas. She was also made to sign a document prohibiting her from speaking about her detention.
Returning to Kazakhstan, she did not stay for long, soon after relocating to Turkey.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
The police accused her of transferring 17000RMB from China to a Turkey-based organization referred to as "Nur". (She told the police that she had never heard of such an organization and had never transferred money from China to Turkey.)
The official reason for the arrest as specified on the document sent by the Chinese authorities to Kazakhstan was "suspected of assisting in terrorist activities" (涉嫌帮助恐怖活动).
Although Gulbahar was released and allowed to return to Kazakhstan, XUAR spokesperson Elijan Anayit has repeated the official accusations at an August 2020 press conference, saying that Gulbahar's Xinjiang-based translator had testified to her directing the translator to transfer 17140RMB to an "ETIM member named Nur".
Victim's status
Released from detention and living abroad.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
This is an eyewitness account.
The letter confirming her arrest comes from the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau, the body responsible for the arrest.
Additional information
Gulbahar's eyewitness accounts describe terrible conditions in the detention centers. According to her, there was not enough space for the women to sleep and the food given to them was watery and sometimes uncooked. The women would also receive bad food for a month as punishment for speaking Uyghur to each other. Political indoctrination and Chinese lessons were delivered via a monitor. Gulbahar also claims that they were given pills that interfered with their menstrual periods and caused loss of concentration.
According to her, the prisoners in the center(s) were between 14 and 80 years old. A breakfast of flour mixed with water [unclear if this is a poor translation and just refers to congee] was served through a small hole, causing most of it to spill on the ground. To "earn" one's meal, a prisoner had to sing 5 patriotic songs, including the national anthem. Showering was allowed only once a month, with cold water and only 2 minutes per prisoner. These conditions caused many to become infested with lice.
Gulbahar claims to have been tortured several times and even threatened with sexual assault by a Kazakh policeman. She also said the administrative work in the facilities is being done by the Han Chinese, with the minorities tasked to fulfill “hands-on” tasks like torture and interrogation of prisoners.
She also mentions having made a pact with another inmate, promising to spread awareness about what happened to them should one of them break free. Gulbahar keeps a diary she has used to write down around 200 names of inmates she met in the facility, along with their stories and why they got arrested. Among them is a doctor detained for downloading an Uyghur song, a famous 43-year-old lawyer who had saved a phone number of a Muslim theologian, a 62-year-old lady, Malian [possibly Hui: Ma Lian], who had gone to Egypt, and even a woman who had been detained after asking her son to buy some flour on the way home: the authorities suspected the word “flour” had meant “matches”.
Media coverage: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-08/uyghur-woman-details-life-inside-chinese-re-education-camp/1 0697044 https://supchina.com/2018/12/05/starving-and-subdued-in-xinjiang-detention-centers/ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/china-calls-it-re-education-but-uyghur-muslims-say-its-unbearable- brutality https://www.dw.com/en/uighur-exile-in-turkey-describes-cruelty-of-chinese-camp/av-51655438 https://hk.news.appledaily.com/china/20191026/QZVT63XIG3TFU5NXJ5F64CEYC4/ https://musou.watchout.tw/read/zkwDEm8BkzCDY395n07Q https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/b713fa83-ec52-4833-82ff-faaf9c130fd3__7C___0.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/secret-chinese-documents-reveal-inner-workings-muslim-detention-c amps-n1089941 https://www.thestar.com/vancouver/2019/12/15/i-took-a-business-trip-to-china-then-i-got-shackled-to-a-c hair-the-heartbreaking-stories-of-uyghurs-in-exile.html https://news.sky.com/story/the-missing-uighurs-exiled-families-haunted-by-hell-of-chinese-prison-camps- 12033475
Xinjiang officials have spoken to discredit her testimony at an official press conference in August 2020: https://archive.vn/lgKvf
Official notice(s)
Original: https://shahit.biz/supp/notori_17.pdf Translation: https://shahit.biz/supp/nottran_17.pdf Side-by-side: https://shahit.biz/notview.php?no=17
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlLgyCn-gS0 Photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/2209_1.png Testimony 5: https://shahit.biz/supp/2209_3.pdf Testimony 6: https://shahit.biz/supp/2209_4.mp4 hives following detention: https://shahit.biz/supp/2209_8.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-01-19 Last updated: 2021-04-22 Latest status update: 2019-12-13 2284. Halmurat Askarovich Rahmanov
Chinese ID: 65402119970714??O? (Ghulja County)
Basic info
Age: 21 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: --- Status: sentenced (4 years) When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): relative(s)|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Abdu Kadirahun, born on February 11, 1967, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 043149759. He is a businessman and has been doing many philanthropic activities in Kazakhstan, he has been donating money (one million tenge) to the poor people each year through Nurotan party and was awarded and received thank you letter from the party and local government. He has been sponsoring 30 orphans in Koktal village in Almaty region, donating 500 000 tenge each year.
Victim's relation to testifier son
About the victim
Halmurat Askarovich Rahmanov, ethnic Uyghur, born on July 14, 1997, is a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 026768880.
Address: Yining city, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
Victim's location
[Unclear, as sentenced.]
When victim was detained
August 2017
Likely (or given) reason for detention for his father's donations in Kazakhstan
Victim's status sentenced to 4 years in prison
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu4w-0LP2ew
Entry created: 2019-01-24 Last updated: 2021-02-03 Latest status update: 2019-01-23 2336. Guzalnur Zheniskazy
Chinese ID: 65????19????????E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 18-35 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
H.
Victim's relation to testifier information publicly available
About the victim name: Guzalnur Jeniskazy gender: female ethnicity: Kazakh
She went to China in 2016 to visit relatives, leaving her 4-month-old daughter back home in Kazakhstan as she planned this to be a short trip. Guzalnur was held under house arrest for several months with a short time spent in detention because she lost her Kazakh passport. She was able to leave China and reunite with her family in Almaty in July 2018.
Victim's location
Kazakhstan
When victim was detained
2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status released
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/10/04/not-livestock-people-rights-kazakh-families-torn-apart-chinas-x injiang-crackdown/ (published 4 OCT 2018)
The story has also been covered in Russian by Azattyq: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/29347008.html
Additional information
---
Entry created: 2019-01-26 Last updated: 2019-01-26 Latest status update: 2019-01-26 2411. Asylhan Qasymhan
Chinese ID: 6522??19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Hami Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1+3: Emen Qisa, born on August 30, 1981, is now a Kazakhstan citizen.
Testimony 2: Beisenbek Qisa.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1+3: in-law
Testimony 2: unclear
About the victim
Asylhan Qasymhan is a Kazakhstan citizen. He got his citizenship in 2009 and went to China in 2013 to resolve personal matters; his family members are in China too. He was allegedly imprisoned in 2016.
Address: Tashbulaq township, Hami prefecture
Victim's location
[Presumably in Hami.]
When victim was detained
September 2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status in prison [but may not be formal prison, as no sentence is mentioned]
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcXifqYgX7k Testimony 2 (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHvFqr8tpc Testimony 2 (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7retSIt-OcI Testimony 2 (3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2e3Rnk83eQ Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGtQm199RNk
Entry created: 2019-01-30 Last updated: 2020-12-31 Latest status update: 2018-12-21 2443. Zhalel Ziabai
Chinese ID: 65????19760219??O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 42 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Qisa Iliyas
Victim's relation to testifier son-in-law
About the victim
Zhalel Ziabai, born on February 19, 1976, is a Kazakhstan citizen since 2009.
Victim's location not stated
When victim was detained
2013
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status probably had his documents confiscated
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information ---
Supplementary materials video testimony (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nca1HSW7s1M video testimony (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2VuLngMHM
Entry created: 2019-01-31 Last updated: 2019-01-31 Latest status update: 2018-12-26 2455. Baqytnur Nebi (巴合提努尔·那毕)
Chinese ID: 654226196806011822 (Kobuksar)
Basic info
Age: 50 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1+3+4: Zharqyngul Qurban born on April 8, 1970.
Testimony 2+5: Zhen’is Qazhybek, born on December 18, 1966.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1+3+4: Cousin
Testimony 2+5: Wife
About the victim
Baqytnur Nebi (巴合提努尔*那毕) born on June 1, 1968. Kazakh citizen. She was living in Astana with her husband and two kids. Chinese government called her to China to sign some documents. As soon as she crossed the border she has been arrested.
Kazakhstan green card: 026798754. Passport no. G43889374.
Address: Bayinbulage North Road (巴音布拉格北路), Building 6, Entrance 3, Flat 301, Hoboksar county-seat, Hoboksar Mongol autonomous county, Tacheng prefecture
Victim's location
Hefeng county, Tacheng region
When victim was detained
Testimony 2: March 7, 2018.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unknown Victim's status
Testimony 3: released from the camp on December 24, 2018.
Testimony 5: she suffers from hypertension.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Not mentioned
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pC32D0HdcI Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGMaIndGecI Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du8NsFL_ZzA Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYVfODsqKVg Testimony 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3V-MVSLwGM Chinese ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/2455_6.png
Entry created: 2019-01-31 Last updated: 2020-12-31 Latest status update: 2018-12-24 2579. Serik Erekesh (赛尔克·叶热克西)
Chinese ID: 654123198705142799 (Korghas)
Basic info
Age: 31 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: sentenced (5 years) When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: religion
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Unknown, but with a verified identity. (relative)
Testimony 2: Qydyrali Oraz, an activist in Kazakhstan and founder of the original Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization.
Testimony 3: Anonymous, as reported by Radio Free Asia Mandarin. (from same town/region)
Testimony 4: Rights Protection Network (维权网), a Chinese blog covering rights abuses in China.
About the victim
Erekesh Serik. His application for Kazakhstan’s citizenship had already been accepted when he was detained.
Address: Group 2, Kelimukol village (开里木库勒村), Sarbulaq town (萨尔布拉克镇), Huocheng county, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
Victim's location
[unclear, as he has been sentenced]
When victim was detained
April 4, 2017
RFA report: March 22, 2017. He was first arrested and sent to a re-education camp in Urumqi, but later transferred to a detention center in Yining county (Testimony 4: in mid-April 2017). His court session was promptly held in Yining county in July 2017, and his relatives were invited to a hearing only half an hour before they were told it would have commenced. When they finally arrived, they were told the session has ended and that he had been sentenced to 5 years in prison. Likely (or given) reason for detention
Testimony 1: being an Imam https://abai.kz/post/60892 (Testimony 2): intended to move to Kazakhstan
Victim's status allegedly sentenced to 5 years
Testimony 4: The local authorities have refused repeated attempts by the victim’s family to get to know his situation.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
RFA coverage (Testimony 3): https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/shaoshuminzu/ql3-07242017095604.html
He is also mentioned in a long list of victims compiled by the Rights Protection Network (Testimony 4): https://wqw2010.blogspot.com/2019/08/201983147-1040_48.html
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnU5SEDwuOU Chinese ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/2579_2.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-02-06 Last updated: 2021-05-20 Latest status update: 2019-02-03 2626. Nagigul Tursynqan (娜黑古丽·吐尔逊汗)
Chinese ID: 65422119760911004X (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: 42 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: concentration camp When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Gulziqan Nasipqan, born in 1972, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (sister-in-law)
Testimony 2: Oryatqan Nasipqan, born in 1975, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (husband)
About the victim
Nagigul Tursynqan (Chinese name 娜黑古丽*吐尔逊汗), born on September 11, 1976, Kazakhstani citizen. Kazakhstan ID Card no. 032215655, IIN: 760911403030.
Address in China: Emin county, Tacheng prefecture
Victim's location
[Presumably in Tacheng.]
When victim was detained
December 2017
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unknown
Victim's status
In re-education camp
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Unclear Additional information
Testimony 1: When she and her three children visited China with a Kazakhstan passport, it was confiscated by Chinese officials.
Testimony 2: Lost her passport in 2013 and hasn't been to Kazakhstan since.
Victims among relatives
Samal Oryatqan (2627), Batyl Oryatqan (2628), Aqyl Oryatqan (2629)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd8hwxbtj3Y Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abf6tC5kv1Y
Entry created: 2019-02-08 Last updated: 2020-06-20 Latest status update: 2019-02-18 2629. Aqyl Oryatqan
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Tacheng Status: --- When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): relative(s)|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Oryatqan Nasipqan, born in 1975, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (father)
Testimony 2: Gulziqan Nasipqan, born in 1972, is a Kazakhstan citizen. (aunt)
About the victim
Aqyl Oryatqan, born on April 28, 2011, citizen of Kazakhstan.
Address in China: Emin county, Tacheng prefecture
Victim's location
[Presumably in Tacheng.]
When victim was detained
Not detained
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unclear
Victim's status
Unknown, possibly sent to an orphanage
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Unclear
Additional information The three children Samal, Batyl and Aqyl went to China in 2013 with their mother Nagigul Tursynqan, who is a citizen of Kazakhstan. Nagigul’s passport was confiscated and she was not allowed to leave. Then she was sent to a re-education camp in December 2017, with the fate of her children unknown.
Victims among relatives
Nagigul Tursynqan (2626), Samal Oryatqan (2627), Batyl Oryatqan (2628)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cd8hwxbtj3Y
Entry created: 2019-02-08 Last updated: 2020-06-20 Latest status update: 2019-02-06 2805. Ariphan Aqbala
Chinese ID: 65222219361220??E? (Barkol)
Basic info
Age: 82 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Hami Status: documents withheld When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Dauletbek Alip, born on April 22, 1979, is now a Kazakhstan citizen.
Testimony 2: Serzhan Alip.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: mother
Testimony 2: unclear [probably mother]
About the victim
Ariphan Aqbala, born on December 20, 1936, is a Kazakhstan citizen. Her Kazakhstan PIN is 361220402530. Her residential address in Kazakhstan is 9B, Kyzylagash village, Aksu county, Almaty region, Kazakhstan. She went to her home town in China to visit her relatives in November 2016.
Victim's location
Barkol Kazakh Autonomous county, Hami region
When victim was detained
November 20, 2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status had her documents confiscated Testimony 2: can't make it back to Kazakhstan since she fell ill and her visa expired.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X68jrU6aL0 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqJVzZOunC8
Entry created: 2019-02-19 Last updated: 2019-02-19 Latest status update: 2019-02-15 2833. Zhumabek Adilqan (珠玛贝克·阿迪勒汗)
Chinese ID: 652325198907052814 (Qitai)
Basic info
Age: 29 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Changji Status: house/town arrest When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues" Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Qalelbek Shaizadan, born on March 3, 1983, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. His ID number is 038906257.
Victim's relation to testifier brother-in-law
About the victim
Adilqan Zhumabek, born on July 5, 1989, is a Kazakhstan citizen. He went to China in 2014 and never came back. His Kazakhstan passport number is N09289072 and it is valid till 2024. His Kazakhstan PIN is 890705000106. Public Security Bureau of Qitai county handed him a document which says that as he had not canceled his hukou reginstration in China, he canceled his registration in Kazakhstan in June 2014 and he has become a Chinese citizen again.
Address: Shorin village, Shorin Township, Qitai county, Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture
Victim's location
[Presumably in Changji.]
When victim was detained
July 17, 2014
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status under house arrest How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VdWAvWKv0I proof of non-cancelled registration: https://shahit.biz/supp/2833_2.png
Entry created: 2019-02-20 Last updated: 2021-01-12 Latest status update: 2019-02-17 2860. Amangeldi Toqan
Chinese ID: 654121197603200030 (Ghulja County)
Basic info
Age: 43 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: house/town arrest When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1-2: Esenei Toqan Toqtiyaruly, born on April 20, 2000 in Ghulja, citizen of Kazakhstan since 2008
Testimony 3: Baqytgul Aset, born on 14 September 1973, is now a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1-2: uncle
Testimony 3: unclear
About the victim
Amangeldi Toqan moved to Kazakhstan in 2009 and obtained Kazakhstan citizenship. He went to China for his mother's treatment in 2014 and the local authorities made him renounce Kazakhstan citizenship. He became a Chinese citizen again.
Address: Tuoxun village (托逊村) First Group, No. 37, Awuliya township (阿乌利亚乡), Yining county, Ili Kazakh autonomous prefecture
Kazakhstan ID: 760320303567.
Victim's location
In Yining County, presumably.
When victim was detained
Detained for 10 days in 2017, then released and put under house arrest (he paid the fine to get released).
Likely (or given) reason for detention ---
Victim's status had his passport confiscated
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Victims among relatives
Toqan Payzi (2859), Amanzhol Toqan (2861), Tileuqabyl Toqan (2862)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaucz5HOGko Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEOKKhJPpDo Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqQR5LILfls
Entry created: 2019-02-24 Last updated: 2019-12-09 Latest status update: 2019-11-04 2919. Sarsenbai Algazy
Chinese ID: 65????19??0625??O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Jan. 2017 - Mar. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Sarsenbai Algazy
Victim's relation to testifier
Himself.
About the victim
Sarsenbai Algazy, born on June 25, is a Kazakhstan citizen now. His ID number is 045273016. He retired in February 2010.
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
He was summoned in February 2017 to visit his old work unit and he had his passport seized, forced to spend 4 months wandering between his relatives' homes.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
Received his passport after the 4 months and returned to Kazakhstan. He was required to come back every 2 months but hasn't given how bad the situation in Xinjiang is. Since October 2017, he has no longer been able to get his Chinese pension.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? He is testifying for himself.
Additional information
He had borrowed money from the bank in China and the bank is now deducting his monthly installments from his brother and father's bank accounts, as they were his guarantors.
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goNWGS1ByXE
Entry created: 2019-03-03 Last updated: 2019-03-03 Latest status update: 2019-02-26 2928. Nazigul Madi
Chinese ID: 65????19740504??E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 44 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Nazigul Madiqyzy.
Victim's relation to testifier
Herself.
About the victim
Nazigul Madiqyzy, born on May 4, 1974, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. Her ID number is 042694971.
Victim's location
In Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
She had her passport confiscated when she went back to China in November 2017.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
Her passport was returned to her and she was able to return to Kazakhstan on January 21, 2018.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The testifier is the victim, in this case.
Additional information The testifier's brother, Musabai Madiuly (no. 2000), was detained two months after her return to Kazakhstan.
Victims among relatives
Musabai Madi (2000)
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-OrP6JHvIs
Entry created: 2019-03-05 Last updated: 2019-03-05 Latest status update: 2019-01-05 2937. Zhenishan Berdibek (井格斯汗·别尔德别克)
Chinese ID: 65422119701221302X (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: 49 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues" Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1: Murathan Qasengazy, born in 1971, is now a Kazakhstan citizen. (husband)
Testimony 2|4: Zhenishan Berdibek, born in 1970, is originally from Tacheng but is now a Kazakhstan citizen. She is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang. (the victim)
Testimony 3: Murathan Qasengazy, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (husband)
Testimony 5*: Anonymous, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (acquaintance)
Testimony 6: Zhenishan Berdibek, as reported by Buzzfeed News. (the victim)
Testimony 7: Zhenishan Berdibek, as reported by "Azat Erkin". (the victim)
Testimony 8: Request for instruction on lifting suspicion, a notice from a local government committee requesting instruction regarding a particular sensitive individual having suspicion officially lifted in their regard.
About the victim
Zhenishan Berdibek is a Kazakhstan citizen, originally from Tacheng's Dorbiljin County.
Registered address in China: House No. 1237, No. 5 Husbandry Team, Emil Livestock Farm, Dorbiljin County, Xinjiang (新疆额敏县也木勒牧场牧业五队1237号).
Victim's location
East Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
She went to China on December 25, 2017 for medical treatment, and would be questioned by local police soon after arrival, before being accused of having dual citizenship a week later. She was then taken to camp, but released 38 days later.
On February 23, 2018, she was told by the police that she could go back to Kazakhstan, but would need a stamp from the Dorbiljin County Public Security Bureau. Instead of letting her leave, they took her to the Turgun Village camp two days later. Because of issues with her waist, she was taken to the hospital on March 9, 2018. On June 26, 2018, she was taken to the heating company (热力公司) camp, before being released on November 21, 2018 and returning to Kazakhstan in early 2019.
[It should be noted that there is some conflicting info in her husband's account as provided to Radio Azattyq. According to what is reported, she went back on December 25 and was arrested immediately in Tacheng City and sent to camp, then would be released 15 days later following her relatives in Kazakhstan sending over proof that she was in poor health. After this, she was allegedly kept under surveillance. This may be a reporting error.]
Likely (or given) reason for detention
She was accused of having "dual citizenship".
Victim's status
Back in Kazakhstan.
She has been diagnosed with hyperplasia, as well as liver and waist problems. She is also a cancer survivor.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
While it is not clear how the victim's husband learned about her detention [presumably from relatives in the region], Zhenishan's is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Radio Azattyq mention: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-china-xinjiang-arrests/29451887.html
Buzzfeed News mention: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/china-new-internment-camps-xinjiang-uighurs-muslims
Interview with activist "Azat Erkin": https://erkinazat2018.medium.com/集中营证人采访系列之berdibek-zhengiskhan-狱警-如果您信有上帝-抓 给我们看啊-981aed5b31f
Eyewitness account
[The following is a summary of the account given by survivor Zhenishan Berdibek to Kazakh activist “Azat Erkin”, which was published in Mandarin on his Medium page in March 2019.]
On December 25, 2017, Zhenishan returned to China to see a doctor. A week later, she was interrogated, with the police asking her why she had come back, whether there was someone who had sent her, and why she didn’t have a mobile phone. Zhenishan answered that she was planning to return to Kazakhstan soon after the medical check-up and thus did not need a Chinese SIM card. The police then asked why she had not cancelled her Chinese registration after going to Kazakhstan, and pressed her regarding which one she was willing to cancel. Zhenishan said that she wanted to cancel the Chinese one. She was then asked to sign a paper, after which she was taken to a re-education camp on the grounds that she had not cancelled her Chinese registration. Following 38 days at camp, she was told not to bring up the registration cancellation issue and to wait for news.
On February 23, 2018, two policemen showed up and told her that she was free to go to Kazakhstan as she did not have any criminal record. She signed some papers and was sent to a local police office, where she was told that she needed a stamp from the Dorbiljin County Public Security Bureau. The Dorbiljin authorities reportedly told her that, were she to cancel her registration, they could find her relatives even in Kazakhstan and bring them back to China. Two days later, the police visited her and took her to the Turgun Village camp.
On March 9, she injured her waist and was taken to a hospital, where doctors said that the waist problem was the result of a previous operation, and that Zhenishan needed to have a new operation in Urumqi, which would cost 10000RMB. She refused, saying that she wanted to go back to Kazakhstan instead. The hospital fees were paid by her relatives, and no food was provided by the authorities.
On June 26, she was taken to the Heating Company Camp. During the transfer, others had black bags put over their heads, but Zhenishan did not. Zhenishan was told that she needed to memorize a handful of Communist songs and then she would be set free.
There were around 1000 people at the camp, with the majority of the staff Kazakh but the management Han Chinese. Zhenishan remembers hearing about one Kazakh man, named Ersin, who had brought a CD with religious material from Kazakhstan and got sentenced to 26 years in prison, which was later shortened to 18 years after his family paid 20000RMB. She said that there were Uyghurs (mostly detained for “separatism”), Hui (mostly detained for praying), and even some Christian and Buddhist Han – as well as people detained for land disputes – at the camp. Zhenishan believes that she was treated fine because she did not know how to pray and had no property in China.
During the sleeping hours, two guards would be assigned to watch the cell, and would pick two people from the cell to stand upright in night shifts, during which the latter would not be allowed to move. At 6 in the morning, the inmates would be woken up and would then have breakfast before going to study. There would be vegetables for dinner.
The guards also checked if the bedsheets were folded properly, and would instruct people to fold them again if they found an untidy corner. Zhenishan says that the guards would sometimes order them to leave the cell, making a mess as they conducted a search, after which they would order the inmates to tidy everything up again. This happened twice at the Turgun Village camp, while the conditions at the Heating Company Camp, Zhenishan says, were less severe.
The cell was entirely female, but inmates would be constantly transferred between the cells. Communication between inmates was prohibited, with the maximum punishment for talking allegedly being 6 months of solitary confinement. In quiet conversations, however, the cellmates would communicate with each other, and would often talk about how life there was “worse than prison”.
Zhenishan heard of cases when people had been tied up in a tiger chair for 48 hours for arguing with the authorities. The inmates were warned that this could happen to them if they disobeyed. They would get asked if they believed in God, with a warning that a positive answer meant them being held in camp for 6 months. As a result, the inmates would respond, in unison, that “no, we do not believe in God”. Zhenishan also adds that the authorities checked video imagery from the CCTV cameras that were installed in mosques in 2015. If a person was found exiting a mosque, he would be sentenced.
Before returning to Kazakhstan, she was made to sign documents saying that she had overstayed her stay in China because her visa expired while she was in the middle of the registration cancellation process. When she said to the police that her family would likely not believe that as the reason for her 14-month disappearance, they replied by asking her if she “wanted to continue studying”, adding that she should “sign the papers and stop talking nonsense”.
Zhenishan says that the time in camp has impacted her health – she started suffering from bone hyperplasia and a crooked spine, following prolonged periods of sitting on a tight chair.
Source: https://erkinazat2018.medium.com/集中营证人采访系列之berdibek-zhengiskhan-狱警-如果您信有上帝-抓 给我们看啊-981aed5b31f
Official notice(s)
Original: https://shahit.biz/supp/notori_21.pdf Translation: https://shahit.biz/supp/nottran_21.pdf Side-by-side: https://shahit.biz/notview.php?no=21
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1-2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_SM6taswZc Testimony 4: https://twitter.com/Akikatkaliolla/status/1175897847532851200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw registration cancellation: https://shahit.biz/supp/2937_3.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-03-04 Last updated: 2021-05-12 Latest status update: 2020-08-27 3291. Abdumijit Nurmuhemmed
Chinese ID: 65322219????????O? (Karakash)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Urumqi Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Anonymous
Victim's relation to testifier family friend
About the victim
Abdumijit Nurmuhammed, around 48 years old, Uyghur man, lives in Urumqi (Heping Nanlu), wealthy businessman (money exchange, runs a private hospital in Urumqi), originally from Hotan Qaraqash. In around July 2017, the police took him away from his home in Urumchi together with his brother and business partner Abduqeyum Nurmuhammed. It is not sure where they were taken (to camp or prison), but they have been gone since that time. Their mother Tunisa (over 80 years old) was taken away in around October 2018 as well. Before the brothers were arrested, they bank accounts were blocked twice.
[RFA report: He is a Turkish citizen. He owns property and shops in Urumqi. After he and his brother Abduqeyum Nurmuhemmed {3292} were arrested, 67 million RMB in their bank accounts were allegedly frozen.]
Victim's location probably Urumqi
When victim was detained around July 2017
[RFA report: April 2017]
Likely (or given) reason for detention none given
Victim's status detained, not sure whether in prison or camp
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? from friends who live in Urumchi
Additional information
[RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/numemet-hajim-08302019084108.html]
Victims among relatives
Abduqeyum Nurmuhemmed (3292)
Supplementary materials photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/3291_1.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-03-25 Last updated: 2019-11-03 Latest status update: 2019-08-30 3292. Abduqeyum Nurmuhemmed
Chinese ID: 6501??19????????O? (Urumqi)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Urumqi Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Anonymous
Victim's relation to testifier family friend
About the victim
Abduqeyum Nurmuhammed, around 50 years old, Uyghur man, lives in Urumqi (Heping Nanlu), wealthy businessman (money exchange, runs a private hospital in Urumqi), originally from Hotan Qaraqash. In around July 2017, the police took him away from his home in Urumchi together with his brother and business partner Abdumijit Nurmuhammed. It is not sure where they were taken (to camp or prison), but they have been gone since that time. Their mother Tunisa (over 80 years old) was taken away in around October 2018 as well. Before the brothers were arrested, they bank accounts were blocked twice.
[RFA report: He is a Turkish citizen. He owns property and shops in Urumqi. 67 million RMB were allegedly frozen in his and his brother Abdumijit Nurmuhemmed's {3291} bank accounts following their arrest.]
Victim's location probably Urumqi
When victim was detained around July 2017
Likely (or given) reason for detention not given Victim's status detained
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? friend in Urumchi
Additional information
[RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/numemet-hajim-08302019084108.html]
Victims among relatives
Abdumijit Nurmuhemmed (3291)
Supplementary materials photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/3292_1.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-03-25 Last updated: 2019-11-03 Latest status update: 2019-08-30 3540. Baqytqan Qisa
Chinese ID: 65??????????????E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: unclear (soft) When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Qisa Iliyas
Victim's relation to testifier daughter
About the victim
Baqytqan Qisa is a Kazakhstan citizen since 2009.
Victim's location not stated
When victim was detained
2013
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status probably had her documents confiscated
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information ---
Supplementary materials video testimony (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nca1HSW7s1M video testimony (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2VuLngMHM
Entry created: 2019-04-07 Last updated: 2019-04-07 Latest status update: 2019-01-01 3541. Ozat Qapan
Chinese ID: 65??????????????E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Hami Status: no news for over a year When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Qisa Iliyas
Testimony 2: Beisenbek Qisa
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: niece
Testimony 2: unclear (likely a relative)
About the victim
Ozat Qapanqyzy is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's location
Testimony 2: She went to Ulatai township in the Hami region.
When victim was detained
Testimony 1: 2013
Testimony 2: Testifier has had no contact with her for the last two years.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status probably had her passport confiscated How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1 (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nca1HSW7s1M Testimony 1 (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2VuLngMHM Testimony 2 (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHvFqr8tpc Testimony 2 (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7retSIt-OcI Testimony 2 (3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2e3Rnk83eQ
Entry created: 2019-04-07 Last updated: 2021-02-17 Latest status update: 2018-12-27 3542. Qurman Orazbek
Chinese ID: 65??????????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Hami Status: no news for over a year When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Qisa Iliyas
Testimony 2: Beisenbek Qisa
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: niece's husband
Testimony 2: unclear
About the victim
Qurman Orazbek is a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's location
Testimony 2: He went to Ulatai village in the Hami region.
When victim was detained
Testimony 1: 2013
Testimony 2: The testifier has had no contact with the victim at all for the past two years.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status probably had his documents confiscated How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1 (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nca1HSW7s1M Testimony 1 (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD2VuLngMHM Testimony 2 (1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHvFqr8tpc Testimony 2 (2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7retSIt-OcI Testimony 2 (3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2e3Rnk83eQ
Entry created: 2019-04-07 Last updated: 2019-04-07 Latest status update: 2018-12-27 3623. Omer Bekri (吾买尔·白克力)
Chinese ID: 65212219760430??O? (Pichan)
Basic info
Age: 43 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Jan. 2017 - Mar. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"terrorism", "endangering state security" Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Omer Bekri, as reported by Radio Azattyq. (the victim)
Testimony 2: Omer Bekri, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (the victim)
Testimony 3: Omer Bekri, as reported by Associated Press. (the victim)
Testimony 4: Omer Bekri, also known as Omir Bekali or Omerbek Eli, is the first ex-detainee eyewitness of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang. A businessman from Turpan, he was a Kazakhstan citizen at the time of his arrest. (the victim)
Testimony 5: Official proof of release, a document provided to a detainee upon his release.
About the victim
Omer Bekri (often "Omir Bekali", sometimes "Omerbek Eli" or even "Omirbek Bekali") was a businessman, originally from Turpan, who moved to Kazakhstan and obtained Kazakhstan citizenship in 2008-2009. He would often go back and forth between China and Kazakhstan for his tourist-company business. He is a quarter Kazakh (from his father) and three-quarters Uyghur.
Since his release from investigative detention and camp in China, Omer has become a leading voice in bringing attention to the crisis in Xinjiang, having traveled to a number of countries to speak at various events and having given numerous interviews to international media. He was the first ex-detainee to go public about his experiences.
Victim's location
Now residing in the Netherlands.
When victim was detained
In March 2017, he went on a business trip to China, arriving in Urumqi on March 23. On March 26, he went to Turpan to visit his mother, and was taken away by five policemen to a police station. Omer was told that he was a suspect and that he was being accused of having invited Chinese people to Kazakhstan, helping them with paperwork - this was turned into accusations of "instigating terrorism", "organizing terror activities", and "covering up for terrorists". He was also told that there was a warrant for his arrest from the Karamay City public security bureau (Omer had lived in Karamay 10 years earlier), even though the police station in Turpan never showed any evidence to Omer of this warrant actually existing.
Before sending him to the local police station in Turpan where he would remain for eight days, he was handcuffed and had a black hood placed over his head, as he was taken to a hospital in Pichan where his blood was taken and where he was given a full-body examination (allegedly, his hood was never removed during the process).
On his first day in detention in Pichan, he was interrogated by three men (one Uyghur and two Han) having come from Karamay. They again accused him of having helped people with their visa applications, taking their money while claiming that he could obtain passports for them. On April 3, 2017, he was taken in handcuffs and shackles to the Jerenbulaq district police station in Karamay. Here again, he was accused of having helped Chinese Muslims leave China via Karamay for Turkey, Syria, and Europe. He was tortured into admitting the allegations against him.
On 17 April, he was taken to the "Karamay City Prison" [presumably, the Karamay City pre-trial detention center], where he remained shackled and/or chained for the entire stay. He was interrogated two more times (on July 10 and in September). He was visited by officials from the Kazakhstan embassy on July 16-17.
On November 4, 2017, he signed papers admitting his guilt and was released from prison and taken to a political re-education camp. However, the staff working at the camp did not admit him, because his medical record said that he suffered from hypertension, and so the police took him to a hospital and had his medical records updated, after which he was admitted to the camp.
In the camp, he was expected to sing songs praising the Communist Party, learn about the dangers of religion and Islam, present self-criticisms in front of other inmates, learn about Chinese history, and learn the Chinese language. After an incident where he refused to speak Chinese, he was no longer allowed to go into the courtyard, and was later placed in solitary confinement.
He was released from camp on November 24, 2017 with the help of the Kazakh government. Receiving a 15-day visa, he returned to Kazakhstan on December 4, 2017.
The only written proof of his detention in China is an official release notice from the Karamay City pre-trial detention center, stating that he was held on suspicion of endangering national security and that he has been released without charge.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
"Endangering national security".
Victim's status
Released and living abroad.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? This is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
Media coverage of his story: https://livingotherwise.com/2018/08/24/stories-kazakhstan-citizens-arrested-china (original: https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhi-v-kitae-istorii-zaderzhannykh/28955982.html) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/kazakh-01302018161655.html https://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/omer-bekali-11072019234732.html
Many of his close relatives were detained following his going public with his story.
Eyewitness account
[The following is a translated transcript of the victim’s interview with Radio Free Asia, adapted here with minor edits and annotations.]
Radio Free Asia: Omerbek, you are the only free person from among those who’ve been detained. Is that correct?
Omerbek: Yes.
RFA: Are you okay going ahead with our interview?
O: Yes, I am.
RFA: Could you please briefly introduce yourself?
O: I was born on April 30, 1976 in Pichan County.
RFA: What is your ethnic background?
O: My mother is Uyghur, my father’s father is Kazakh, and on my passport, it is written “Uyghur”. I studied in Uyghur schools.
RFA: When did you move to Kazakhstan?
O: 12 years ago. I am now a Kazakhstan citizen, a legal immigrant. I became a citizen in 2008. Since then, I have been travelling back and forth between the two countries, doing business. I have been going to Urumqi without any hassle, and I have never supported any [terrorist/political] organizations or groups.
Since 2016, I have been working in a tourist company. As we had scheduled a trade exhibition in Astana from June 10 to September 10, 2017, we went to Urumqi in March [2017] to attend a conference promoting the event. With the three-day conference over, I went to Pichan to visit my family. The following day, at ten o’clock, the police came to the house, saying that they needed to speak to me. There were 5 policemen in uniform, and they said: “You don’t know us, but we know you.” That was on the 26th of March. They took me away without any documentation and imprisoned me without any evidence. I would be kept in prison until November 4, despite my being a Kazakhstan citizen. Both of my parents are aged, with my father 78 and my mother over 60. They live in Pichan.
RFA: What was the reason?
O: They said I was a suspect. They accused me of instigating terrorism, organizing terror activities, and covering up for terrorists. After arriving at the police station, they turned the computer on and said that there was a warrant for my arrest from the Karamay Public Security Bureau.
RFA: But they didn’t have an arrest warrant in their hands. Is that correct?
O: Yes, they had no paperwork in their hands. I told them that I had only come to visit my parents, and that I was leaving the next day to fly back to Almaty. They said: “We need to talk to you. It will only take half an hour.” I was then taken to the Dariyaz police station, where we talked for nearly two hours. They didn’t take away my passport or telephone during this time, and so I contacted my wife and some close friends, telling them that there was a warrant for my arrest from Karamay, and that I was being held at the police station. They got very worried when I told them what was happening.
They [the police] then changed my phone settings so that it stopped working, and said that the county officials needed to see me – hence, they would take me to the Pichan county police station. At this point, they handcuffed me and put a black hood over my head. When I asked them why they were doing that to me, they said that this was the standard procedure, and that they did it to everyone. They were all young men and asked me to cooperate with them.
I was taken to a hospital (or a clinic) first, where I was examined and had blood samples taken. There was a full-body examination and my hood was never removed. When I heard them talking about my examination, I was terrified, thinking that they might cut me open alive to remove some of my organs and sell them. It was a very traumatic experience!
Once the procedure was done, I was taken to a prison, where I had to change into a prison uniform, before being placed in a cell with 13 other young men. They were all Uyghur men in shackles. I was kept there, in shackles, for 8 days. On the first day, three men – one Uyghur and two Chinese – came from Karamay to question me.
“You assisted people with their visa applications,” they told me. “Also, you took money from them claiming that you could get them passports. Where did you spend all that money? We will investigate you further in Karamay.”
Then, on April 3, I was taken to Karamay.
RFA: How were you transported from Pichan to Karamay? Was a hood placed over your head? Were you in shackles?
O: I was in handcuffs and shackles, but there was no hood. I would first be taken to the Jerenbulaq Police Station and placed in a basement cell. The following day, the police chief came to question me. I will never forget the first thing he said: “Kazakhstan is my XXX.” (I am embarrassed to say the rude word he used.)
RFA: Was he Han Chinese? O: Yes, his surname was Liu. I didn’t react to what he said, as I knew that if I said anything or argued I would just get myself into even more trouble. They then started to question me about the 43 years of my life. I told them everything, since I had nothing to hide. For two days, I was not allowed to sleep as I was continuously questioned. They repeatedly asked me:
“Are you going to tell us or not?”
“What can I tell you?” I’d reply.
“Which organizations are you in contact with? What is your purpose for entering the country? What services have you been providing to the people in Karamay? There are many people who have left from Karamay to go to Turkey, Syria, and Europe. You have been assisting them. You are also giving money to organizations.”
I denied everything that they accused me of, after which I’d have to spend over an hour reading their statements of my replies before signing off on them.
“You are lucky that you are a foreign national,” they said. “Otherwise, you would have experienced our wrath.”
Then, on April 17, I was taken to the Karamay City Prison [most likely, the Karamay City pre-trial detention center, judging by the official release notice].
RFA: No one from the Kazakhstan embassy visited you during that period?
O: In June, during the month of Ramadan, I was told that officials from the Kazakhstan embassy were coming to visit me. They asked me if I wanted to see them. I said that yes, of course, I had to see them. After Ramadan ended and the Eid celebration had been completed, they came, on July 16 or 17. There was a diplomat from the embassy in Beijing and another diplomat from Urumqi. We spoke for an hour and a half. They explained to me my rights and the responsibilities of the prison, then left.
In explaining to me my rights, they stated that, first of all, the prison authorities had no right whatsoever to torture me. Secondly, they had no right to force me to do heavy labor. In explaining the prison’s responsibilities, they said that if I were ill, the prison had to provide medical treatment. They also had to ensure that I receive three meals a day.
RFA: Is it because you were a Kazakhstan citizen that you had those rights?
O [not answering the question, it seems]: My worst experience in the [Karamay] prison was when I first arrived. My ankles were shackled together and one ankle was chained to the bed. I was to spend every day and every night, until the 13th of June, eating, sleeping, and carrying out my ablutions on the bed, with the occasional wash by the young guards. And I remember that day [June 13] vividly, because they used a meter of chain, attached to my upper arm and my ankle, to bring me to a crouching position. It was so agonizingly uncomfortable, and I would have to live in that position until November 4, when I left that prison.
(Later, I would learn that my mother and sister had campaigned for my release, asking for help from the Kazakhstan embassy. My friends and members of civil society also submitted letters of complaint and demanded my release. In the end, diplomats from the consulate would approach the Chinese authorities, saying that I should be released into their authority, to decide if I should be put on trial or not.) The only time that I was free of my shackles, for an hour and a half, was on that day when the diplomats visited me in July. I’d stand up and stagger like a drunken man, unable to maintain my balance as I walked.
I knew that I was innocent, that I had not broken any rules or laws, and I was certain that I was not guilty of any crime. However, I lost all hope of surviving while I was locked up in prison. On November 4, I was asked to sign a document stating the conditions of my bail. I signed, thinking that I had to leave that hellhole by any means, even if it was just to make contact with the outside world. People normally count hours or days, but in prison we counted the minutes and seconds. I was then taken to a re-education camp, where I would stay for 20 days.
RFA: After spending so many months in the terrible prison conditions, how long did you spend at the re-education camp?
O: I was transferred from the prison to the re-education camp in Karamay on the evening of November 4, 2017. I regained my freedom on November 24, after spending 20 days there.
That place was just like a prison. There were guards at the gate, and as soon as I passed through I was taken for a medical examination. My blood pressure read 185 over 115, the lowest point being 115. I had never suffered from any illness or high blood pressure before.
RFA: After arriving at the camp, were you allowed to contact your family?
O: I arrived late at night, and was told that they would arrange for me to call my family the following day. However, I’d end up waiting many days before the arrangement was made.
RFA: How many people were there in one room?
O: There were 23 in my room.
RFA: How big was the room?
O: Our room was not crowded. There were cameras installed there, so we were under surveillance at all times. The people there were aged 16 to 20, in addition to the middle aged and some elderly. They came from all different backgrounds. There were government employees, teachers… I also saw a whole family – a father, mother, and child.
People who had completed their prison sentences had also been transferred there for re-education. The government employees were accused of being “two-faced”, which was the most convenient accusation to use. There were even people brought in because they had used Urumqi time [“Xinjiang time”]. As I was leaving, I would hear comments from the cadres that it was now time to bring in people who worked in the legal system. There were doctors, teachers, and lawyers starting to be detained.
RFA: Were they all Uyghur?
O: 70 to 80 percent were Uyghur, 20 to 30 percent Kazakh, and no other ethnic groups. According to what I heard, there were over 1000 young men there. The camp was made up of three different areas, designated as A, B, and C. I was in Area C, together with approximately 300 other men.
RFA: What did you have to do after being admitted? O: The sleeping hours were from midnight to 6:00 am. In the morning, all beds had to be made in military style. Anyone who failed to do as told was considered as failing in their ideology. At 7:30, we had to attend the flag raising ceremony. After that, we had to wash up and then go for breakfast, prior to which we needed to sing a “red” (communist) song, such as “Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China” and “Socialism is Good”. Everyone had to sing one of these red songs. Also, before starting to eat, we had to say: “Thank you to the Party, thank you to the country, thank you to President Xi, I wish him good health, I wish that President Xi live long and stay young.”
There was another long statement that we had to read as well, but I would skip reading it, and so on the third day I was ordered to stand in the back for refusing to read the statement. After I spoke to them in Russian and Uyghur, they realized that I was a foreigner and told me to sit down.
RFA: Did you have to repeat those words every day before eating?
O: Yes, those were the rules, and you had to follow them.
RFA: What classes did you have to attend?
O: Those who didn’t know Chinese well were taught Chinese. Other classes included Party laws and regulations, and the red songs praising the Party. The classes were all taught in Mandarin, and each week there would be an exam. Also, during the classes, they would inform you of specific court cases, the sentences people received, and what they were sentenced for. This was to create fear, to use these examples as a way of telling people what the price for not following the rules would be.
In between classes, there was 2 hours of military training, marching, standing at attention, and instantly carrying out ordered commands.
Because of all these experiences, I now suffer from post-traumatic disorder. I still cannot sleep properly. It damages you psychologically.
RFA: Did you see anyone leave the camp while you were there?
O: No. The cadres told me that it would take one year at least to complete the re-education program.
RFA: So you were a special case. As you are a Kazakhstan citizen, you were treated differently. The re-education camps started around March or April, right?
O: In Karamay, they started in March. At the beginning, people were taken to camps outside of Karamay for a month or two. Later, they converted government buildings and schools into re-education camps.
RFA: How many camps are there in total in Karamay? Do you have any information about them?
O: There’s the one in Jerenbulaq District, where I was kept, and two or three in Karamay, I heard. I also heard that they told the ethnic minority government employees that they had to complete a re-education program to “correct” their ideology. The cadres informed their staff that it was a directive from the central government and that they had no choice but to comply.
RFA: What was the food in the camp like?
O: It was slightly better than in the prison. For breakfast, there was rice soup [congee]. For lunch and dinner, there’d be some meat. I think they sent me there because they wanted me to get a little better before returning, seeing as I had lost 40 kilos while in prison.
RFA: While at the camp, what freedoms did you have?
O: When I had just arrived there, we were allowed to go get water from the washroom after class. However, just before I would leave, detainees were being told that they had to stay in their rooms after the lessons, and the doors would be installed with padlocks and chains. I don’t know what happened to cause the sudden change, but I felt like there was a sense of emergency.
RFA: How many times were you allowed to shower?
O: Once a week.
RFA: Did you notice anyone who was ill, or not coping with the pressure and showing signs of mental health problems?
O: I saw old men with walking sticks, and other people who were limping. As for mental health, it is hard to know how people felt inside. They brought in people with no regard as to their disabilities or old age, claiming that these people needed re-education.
RFA: In everyday life, people need essential items, such as soap and toothpaste. If the families were not allowed to visit, how did people obtain such items?
O: In the camp, you could wear your own underwear, but you had to wear the outer clothing that they provided. In Karamay, they distributed winter clothing and shoes. There was also a shop inside the camp that specifically sold underwear and washing products. If you fell ill, you would receive treatment only if you could pay for it.
RFA: What if you didn’t have money?
O: Then you didn’t get treatment. At the beginning, they refused to provide me with medication, but I argued that it was their responsibility to provide me treatment. Seeing as how my blood pressure was very high, I was ultimately given blood-pressure medication.
RFA: Were there any deaths that you saw or heard of?
O: No. I don’t know of any.
RFA: So you attended the re-education program in accordance with their rules and regulations?
O: It was compulsory, and so it was impossible for us to not obey any of the orders. It didn’t matter if you were a foreigner or whatever – no one had the right to disobey orders. There were armed police, some of whom carried wooden batons that they would immediately use to deliver a severe beating to anyone who showed any signs of disobedience. So, there was no choice but to obey.
When I first arrived, I refused to speak Chinese. They said that I was doing that deliberately and ordered me to stand in the back of the room during class. On the seventh day, when I leaned against the bookshelf, one of the officials pushed me, shouting and telling me that I shouldn’t lean on it. There were other cadres present in the class as well. I shouted back, telling him to mind his own business, after which the police came and removed me from the classroom, locking me up in a cell. During the classes, I would only write my full name in Russian in my notebook, and nothing else, which caused outrage. They said that I refused to re-educate myself, deliberately refusing to speak and write in Chinese. They swore at me, so I shouted back. The police came then also, taking me and two other young men – I don’t know what they had done, maybe they had refused to obey a cadre’s order – as well as five other men, who were also removed for reasons I don’t know. So, the 8 of us were locked up, which they said was to teach us a lesson, so that we may admit our wrongdoings.
In order to be reunited with their family, and not be sent to prison, the people there were forced to obey all those unfair rules and to memorize what they were taught for their exams, because there was no other way out. They claim that through re-education they can liberate the people’s minds, making them embrace the Party, love the country, and obey all of the Party’s rules and regulations. It was very difficult for me to comprehend the fact that you could be forced to undergo such a re-education regime in a prison just for being an Uyghur or a Kazakh.
Seeing so many innocent people treated in such a cruel way, I was deeply saddened. It also affected me mentally. During my time in the prison, being chained and not being able to see the sun, suffering from pangs of hunger, it was not possible to accept how my dignity was being trampled upon. All of this will stay with me forever.
It would be only on the 19th day that I’d be allowed to make a phone call, despite being told on the day of my arrival that I’d be able to contact my family the following day. Every day they would make excuses, refusing to arrange a call for me. I requested the contact info of the head of the Karamay City court or the head of the city judiciary, and they said that they would give it to me, but nothing happened. Then, on the 19th day, the manager in charge said:
“If you speak Chinese, he will come to see you immediately.”
“Just shoot me or take me back to prison!” I shouted in return. “I’m not going to learn what you’re teaching.”
Three policemen came, twisted my arm behind my back, handcuffed me, then took me to a cell and locked me up. I kept kicking the door and screaming, and the head of security came, shouting for me to stop. I shouted back in Uyghur, pretending not to understand Chinese. I tried so hard to free my hands from the handcuffs, but as a result my wrists started bleeding and went numb.
Eventually, they removed the handcuffs, but wouldn’t give me food for two days. The next day, a policeman came and asked if I wanted food. I asked what crime I had committed to be punished like this. Normally, you offer food to someone even before taking them to their execution. He then brought me five or six spoonfuls of food, provided by the detainees with whom I had shared my previous room. On the third day, I was returned to the previous room, and my roommates asked me if I had eaten anything.
“Only the five or six spoonfuls you sent me,” I told them, “But it helped. Thank you.”
Hearing that, they looked surprised.
“What are you saying brother?” they said. “We filled an entire plate from our meals and sent it to you.”
Only then did I realize that the police had thrown away most of it.
I was given a new quilt when I first arrived there. It was very difficult to fold into the required standard, and so one of the young men gave me his, as it was easier to fold and saved me from further punishment. I was deeply moved by the different acts of kindness from the people there, as they tried to be humane to one another.
At around three in the afternoon, I heard my name being called. I was then told to collect my belongings and be ready to go.
“I might be taken to prison or I might be freed,” I told my roommates. “Take care of yourselves.”
A policeman then led me out and told me that I would be released. I told him to not joke around, and to shake my hand if that was true. He shook my hand and said:
“It’s true. We are releasing you and you are returning to Kazakhstan.”
“I was unjustly being mistreated all this time,” I told him. “I am an educated man who can speak four languages. I know your language just as well as my mother tongue, having studied in it since primary school. I’m qualified to teach classes in your language.”
They were all surprised when I said this, saying:
“Oh, you know Chinese.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve mastered it. I don’t need education from uncivilized and uncultured people.”
Then, before passing through the gate, I said to the policemen:
“I will complain to all levels of government, and all the way up to the Beijing central government. I will clear my name of all the accusations that have been made against me. I will make sure I am paid compensation. Also, I will make sure that the head of the department who ordered my arrest loses his job.”
I was then sent to my sister’s house. They were all in tears upon seeing me.
The way I see it, what they’re hoping for is that re-educating all these people will make them come out like sheep, but on the contrary they’re just planting seeds of hatred and turning them into enemies. And that’s not just my view. The majority of the people in camp, from the young to the old, of whom 90 percent are educated – they all have a sense of justice. In my case, I made the decision that I will pursue the cause of justice.
RFA: Did anything happen to your relatives?
O: I don’t know if they will be punished after hearing this, but I know that my brother was taken one month after I left.
RFA: Where was he?
O: He was in Pichan.
Source: https://chinatribunal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/OmerBekari_PD.pdf
Official notice(s) Original: https://shahit.biz/supp/notori_12.pdf Translation: https://shahit.biz/supp/nottran_12.pdf Side-by-side: https://shahit.biz/notview.php?no=12
Victims among relatives
Rizwangul Bekri (5195), Adile Bekri (687), Osman Bekri (5193), Abdurahman Bekri (686), Qamber Bekri (5194), Aminihan Sadiq (685), Bekri Ibrahim (684), Patigul Emet (522), Shirmemet Tashmemet (523), Eli Tashmemet (524), Reyhangul Tashmemet (1868), Halid Shirmemet (1865), Mujahit Shirmemet (1866), Hediche Shirmemet (1867), Sumeyye Eli (5650), Abdulla Eli (5651)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnrhCJB3vbk photo (AP): https://shahit.biz/supp/3623_1.jpeg Testimony 2 (extended): https://shahit.biz/supp/3623_2.pdf in the Netherlands: https://shahit.biz/supp/3623_5.jpeg photos before and after detention: https://shahit.biz/supp/beforeafter_3623.png
Entry created: 2019-04-13 Last updated: 2020-05-11 Latest status update: 2019-11-07 3628. Ayimgul Zhanat
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Altay Status: documents withheld When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Testimony 1: Zhainsha Asanqyzy, born on February 10, 1960, is now a Kazakhstan citizen
Testimony 2: Mahytgul Saipolla, born on March 1, 1985.
Victim's relation to testifier
Testimony 1: Granddaughter
Testimony 2: niece
About the victim
Ayimgul Zhanat, born on February 9, 2012. Kazakhstan citizen. Birth certificate no. 10-108-1200000032.
Victim's location
Tosta township (托斯特乡), Jimunai county, Altay region
When victim was detained
Not stated
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
Her and her parents' documents are confiscated
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? Not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jojhi25qSXE Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSFL3Ble8_M
Entry created: 2019-04-14 Last updated: 2019-04-14 Latest status update: 2019-01-21 3850. Huseyinjan Jelil (玉山江·吉力力)
Chinese ID: 65312919690301??O? (Peyziwat)
Basic info
Age: 51 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Urumqi Status: sentenced (20 years) When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"separatism", "terrorism", revealing "state secrets" Health status: --- Profession: religion
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Amnesty International, a human rights organization.
Testimony 2: Anonymous, as reported by Human Rights Watch. (relative)
Testimony 3: Anonymous, as reported by CTV Television Network. (mother)
Testimony 4: He Yafei, as reported by CTV Television Network.
Testimony 5|6: Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada.
Testimony 7: Kamila Telendibaeva, as reported by The Star. (wife)
Testimony 8: Xinhua News Agency, as reported by Globe and Mail.
Testimony 9: Alex Neve, as reported by Globe and Mail.
Testimony 10: Kamila Telendibaeva, as reported by National Post. (wife)
About the victim
Huseyinjan Jelil (often reported as "Huseyincan Celil") was an imam from Kashgar. In October 2001, he moved to Canada and later obtained Canadian citizenship. He is a father of four.
Victim's location
The Xinjiang No. 1 Prison in Urumqi.
When victim was detained
Huseyinjan was initially arrested on March 27, 2006 by the authorities in Uzbekistan, where he and his wife were visiting family. They claimed that he was actually Guler Dilaver, a man placed on Interpol watchlists by Kyrgyzstan on terrorism charges.
Over the next 2-3 months, Huseyinjan would meet with Canadian officials in the region a total of three times, but this appeared to produce little effect, as he is believed to have been extradited to China on or around June 22 (2006), where he was wanted on "terrorism" charges.
His trial began on February 2, 2007, in Urumqi, with Canadian officials staying in the city for the duration of the trial but not being allowed to attend. On April 19, the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to life for "terrorism" and trying to "split the country". He appealed, but had the appeal dismissed on July 10 after a 40-minute hearing.
(According to his mother, Huseyinjan had been threatened into signing a confession, which then led to the closed trial during which he was sentenced to life for "leaking state secrets".)
On February 1, 2016, the court adjusted his sentence to between 19 years and 6 months and 20 years (starting from the judgment date).
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Reports say that the life sentence was given for "terrorism" and trying to "split the country", although the victim's mother also mentions "leaking state secrets" as a charge.
Speaking to Western media, Chinese diplomat He Yafei said that Huseyinjan was suspected of being involved in terrorist activities (being "a key member of a terrorist organization called Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement").
Victim's status
Serving a prison sentence.
His relatives used to be able to visit him twice a year, but these visits stopped in 2016.
He has not once been allowed consular access while in detention, despite requests from Canadian foreign ministers.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Some of his relatives attended the trial and spoke to media about it. Canadian officials were also closely involved.
The news about his sentence being commuted was published by Chinese state media, which presumably has direct access to such information.
Additional information
He is listed in a number of reports: https://www.cecc.gov/sites/chinacommission.house.gov/files/documents/CECC%20Pris%20List_20181011 _1424.pdf https://www.hrichina.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/CRF.4.2006/CRF-2006-4_Custody.pdf https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WUC-Refugee-Report-Updated-June-20 17.pdf https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/01/28/china-account-uighur-refugees-forcibly-repatriated-china
Media coverage of the case: https://www.ctvnews.ca/family-claims-huseyin-celil-tortured-in-china-1.228305 https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/chinas-disregard-for-the-rule-of-law-strikes-too-close-to-home/ https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2009/08/23/how_amateurhour_diplomacy_took_away_dad.html https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/liberals-have-to-do-more-to-free-my-husband-after-14-years-in-pr ison-says-wife-of-jailed-huseyin-celil https://www.insidehalton.com/news-story/2892308-celil-writes-home/
Amnesty International's statement: https://www.amnesty.ca/our-work/individuals-at-risk/huseyin-celil
Amnesty International action: https://takeaction.amnesty.ca/page/35381/action/1
The Globe and Mail has also covered this case extensively: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/timeline-the-celil-affair/article4171399/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/as-ottawa-fumbled-husseyin-celil-languished-in-chinas-c ourt-system/article4171496/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/china-reduces-sentence-for-canadian-long-imprisoned-on -terror-charges/article28531193/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-leak-of-china-documents-raises-questions-about-impris oned-canadian/
A blog site with comprehensive coverage of the case (stops at 2008): http://celilnews.blogspot.com/
State-media coverage of sentence reduction: https://archive.vn/pUxoN https://archive.vn/d8xcO
His "repentance letter" published in state media: https://archive.vn/vjUHE
His Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huseyincan_Celil
Letter from detention
Original: https://shahit.biz/supp/letori_5.pdf Translation: https://shahit.biz/supp/lettran_5.pdf Side-by-side: https://shahit.biz/letview.php?no=5
Supplementary materials photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/3850_1.png
Entry created: 2019-04-26 Last updated: 2020-12-18 Latest status update: 2020-07-02 4228. Ablimit Dawut
Chinese ID: 65????19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: --- Status: --- When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Radio Free Asia Uyghur, the Uyghur-language service of Radio Free Asia.
About the victim
Ablimit Dawatoglu, also spelled Abdulhamit Davutoglu, was reportedly picked up on the 8th of January in 2011 by Tajik security forces in Dushanbe and on the following day, two other businessmen traveling with him, Kamiljan Omeroglu and Ehmet Rashidi, were detained when they went to the police department to inquire about Dawatoglu's status.
All three had left Xinjiang within the last 10 years prior and Dawatoglu and Omeroglu had received Turkish citizenship over the previous three years while Rashidi received it four months prior. Dawatoglu’s brother was reportedly executed in China years before in Hotan on charges of "splittism." Davatoglu was 37 at the time of detention. Turkish officials reportedly made contact with Tajik authorities, but little information was ever divulged.
Victim's location
The victim's location is unknown.
When victim was detained
The victim was detained in Tajikistan on the 8th of January in 2011.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unknown.
Victim's status
There are fears that he may be extradited to China. How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Radio Free Asia cites Uyghur groups, and has also talked to Mustafa Turkel Yilmaz, press officer for the Turkish embassy in Dushanbe, who said that they hadn't received official confirmation from the Tajik side at the time.
Additional information https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WUC-Refugee-Report-Updated-June-20 17.pdf
RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tajikistan-01242011150501.html
Entry created: 2019-05-14 Last updated: 2021-05-23 Latest status update: 2011-01-24 4229. Kamiljan Omer
Chinese ID: 65????19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: --- Status: --- When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Radio Free Asia Uyghur, the Uyghur-language service of Radio Free Asia.
About the victim
Kamiljan Omeroglu or Kemal Ömeroglu was detained on January 8th in 2011 in Tajikistan after he and another businessman, Ehmet Rashidi, went to a Tajiki police department in Dushanbe to inquire about the status of a businessman they were traveling with, Ablimit Dawatoglu, who had been arrested the day before. He had received Turkish citizenship over the last three years. He was 47 at the time of his detention. Turkish officials reportedly made contact with Tajik authorities, but little information was ever divulged.
Victim's location
Unknown.
When victim was detained
January 9th in 2011.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unknown.
Victim's status
There are fears that he may be extradited to China.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Radio Free Asia cites Uyghur groups, and has also talked to Mustafa Turkel Yilmaz, press officer for the Turkish embassy in Dushanbe, who said that they hadn't received official confirmation from the Tajik side at the time.
Additional information https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WUC-Refugee-Report-Updated-June-20 17.pdf
RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tajikistan-01242011150501.html
Supplementary materials photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/4229_1.png
Entry created: 2019-05-14 Last updated: 2021-05-23 Latest status update: 2011-01-24 4230. Ehmet Reshid
Chinese ID: 65????19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: --- Status: --- When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Radio Free Asia Uyghur, the Uyghur-language service of Radio Free Asia.
About the victim
Ehmet Rashidi or Ahmet Rasit was detained on January 8th in 2011 in Tajikistan after he and another businessman, Kamiljan Omeroglu, went to a Tajiki police department in Dushanbe to inquire about the status of a businessman they were traveling with, Ablimit Dawatoglu, who had been arrested the day before. He had received Turkish citizenship 4 months prior. He was 48 at the time of his detention. Turkish officials reportedly made contact with Tajik authorities, but little information was ever divulged.
Victim's location
His location is unknown.
When victim was detained
The victim was detained on the 9th of January in 2011.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Unknown.
Victim's status
There are fears that he may be extradited to China.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Radio Free Asia cites Uyghur groups, and has also talked to Mustafa Turkel Yilmaz, press officer for the Turkish embassy in Dushanbe, who said that they hadn't received official confirmation from the Tajik side at the time. Additional information https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WUC-Refugee-Report-Updated-June-20 17.pdf
RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tajikistan-01242011150501.html
Entry created: 2019-05-14 Last updated: 2021-05-23 Latest status update: 2011-01-24 4358. Abdullajan Abdulmennan
Chinese ID: 65????19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 18-35 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: inner China Status: in custody When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): other|--- Health status: deceased Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
This testimony has been imported from a report by the World Uighur Congress.
Victim's relation to testifier
-
About the victim
Abdullajan Abdulmennan has a complicated and relatively high-profile case. Abdullajan Abdulmennan attempted to travel alongside 3 other Uighurs to reach their families in Turkey. They were not allowed to directly go to Turkey, despite possessing Turkish citizenship, and so planned to travel to Turkey through Vietnam. Abdullajan successfully met his father in Vietnam but was detained after a week in Vietnam for the possession of Chinese and Turkish registration. Two days later he was deported to a prison in Pingxiang in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. His family was not allowed to send him clothes or money. His father did see him in early 2014 in good health, but he was reported dead by Chinese authorities in late 2014. He was reported to have died of "illness". He was 21.
The names of the three other Uighurs who traveled with Abdullajan are unknown as is their status.
Victim's location
-
When victim was detained
The victim was detained in late 2013 and died in detention in late 2014.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
The victim was detained for the possession of their Chinese ID's. Victim's status
Deceased.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Radio Free Asia.
Additional information https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/WUC-Refugee-Report-Updated-June-20 17.pdf https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/death-in-prison-10132014181516.html
(The Radio Free Asia article is a more accurate and full report.)
Supplementary materials photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/4358_1.jpg
Entry created: 2019-05-22 Last updated: 2019-05-29 Latest status update: 2014-10-13 4981. Amanzhan Seiit
Chinese ID: 65420119????????O? (Chochek)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Jan. 2018 - Mar. 2018 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"registration issues" Health status: has problems Profession: private business
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1: Amanzhan Seiit, a businessman from Tacheng City and a citizen of Kazakhstan since 2002. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent 2 months in a camp despite being a foreign citizen. (the victim)
Testimony 2*: Gene A. Bunin, independent scholar and curator of shahit.biz. (friend)
Testimony 3: Erbaqyt Otarbai, a truck driver and Kazakhstan citizen, who spent about 2 years in Xinjiang after returning there in 2017. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations. (detained together)
About the victim
Amanzhan Seiit, originally from Chochek (Tacheng) City in Tacheng Prefecture, first came to Kazakhstan in 1996 as a student, and would obtain Kazakhstan citizenship in 2002. He initially worked as a translator for a China-Kazakhstan company, but at one point started his own business, often going back and forth between the two countries.
He's married and has four kids, all of whom live with him in Almaty. He's also skilled at languages, and speaks Kazakh, Uyghur, Mandarin, Russian, and English to various extents. Following his detention in China, his business activities were essentially destroyed, and he's had to work freelance jobs - as a translator or a driver, for example - to make ends meet. He is in his forties.
Victim's location
Now in Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
Detained in February of 2018, while flying to Beijing on business. He was first interrogated, then coerced into returning to his hometown in Tacheng on the grounds that he had to "de-register" from his Chinese citizenship (voided long ago). Upon returning to Xinjiang, he was taken to Tacheng, held at a police station for 4 days, sent to one camp for 23 days, and then transferred to another for over a month, before being released and allowed to return to Kazakhstan in mid-April 2018, together with Orynbek Koksebek {1725} and another Kazakhstan citizen, Arman.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
The official reason appears to be his "dual citizenship" (or failing to properly "de-register" from his Chinese citizenship, though he did this back in 2002). Not long before his release, the officials supposedly admitted to him that they had no grounds for holding Amanzhan, and that this is "just how things are in Xinjiang".
Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan, where he has on many occasions spoken to media about his experiences.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
This is an eyewitness account.
Additional information
The New Yorker feature: https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/china-xinjiang-prison-state-uighur-detention-camp s-prisoner-testimony
Eyewitness account
[The following interview with the eyewitness was conducted in Russian by Gene A. Bunin and Chris Rickleton for Agence France Presse (Almaty, Kazakhstan in July 2018). It was later translated, transcribed, and “smoothed” into English by Gene A. Bunin in June-July 2019.]
Interviewer: I’d like to ask you to introduce yourself.
Amanzhan: Amanzhan Seiituly. I came to Kazakhstan in 1996. To study. I got my Kazakhstan citizenship in 2002. I worked as a translator for a Chinese company. I worked there for about 2 years. Then I went into business. I would go to China every year on business.
I: Usually once a year…?
A: Once or twice a year, usually. Every year I’d go. Sometimes three times.
I: Would it usually be to Xinjiang?
A: Xinjiang, but also to Beijing. To inner China. I’d go often, and there’d never be any problems.
I: And when did you feel like the problems started?
A: In 2015. In 2014 or 2015, already. It felt like something was not right. Each time at customs they would ask what you were doing, what your reason was for coming to China, what relatives you had in China, what relatives you had in Kazakhstan… Those kinds of questions. They would interrogate you, and the interrogations got longer with each time.
I: How long was it the first time? An hour, two, maybe three?
A: It varied at the start. A half hour. Then it’d be an hour. The last time they interrogated me for 6 hours. And when I went to China in 2017 – in September or October – there was also an interrogation but no detention. They just interrogated me and then let me go. But in 2018, they interrogated me for 6 hours and didn’t let me go, taking me back to my hometown…
I: This was in Beijing?
A: Yes, in Beijing. They held me in police custody [in my hometown] for 4-5 days and then sent me straight to the political education center.
I: That was when you returned to Urumqi?
A (slight misunderstanding): Yes, yes. When I returned to my hometown [Tacheng City].
…
I: I know I’ve asked you already, but just so that we have it on camera, could I ask you to recount in detail what happened that day when you went from Almaty to Beijing. How did that day go? You landed and…
A: We left for Beijing at 11 [at night]. We arrived at 4 in the morning, Beijing time. And they have those customs stands there, right? And so there the police immediately looked at my passport, matched it to what was in the computer, took me to one of their special police rooms, and started interrogating me and asking many questions. They immediately turned on their Wi-Fi, or whatever it was, and had my hometown police question me.
I: Through video?
A: Not through a video camera. Just audio.
I: Sorry, but how many people was it that questioned you? Was it two policemen?
A: Yes, two. The Beijing…
I: One Uyghur and one Han? Or both Han?
A: The Han interrogated, then the Uyghurs interrogated, then they connected to my hometown and the police there interrogated me also. They had a lot of questions. Endless questions. My relatives in China, what I was doing there, age, job, how many relatives in Almaty, Kazakhstan, who my friends were, what they did. Then about my house – how many rooms it had, what it cost, whether I had a car, the car brand, how much. What I did for a living. That stuff… They asked everything.
I: Did they ask each question only once? Or were there questions that they asked multiple times?
A: Multiple times.
I: Did different people ask the same questions, or was it the same people who asked you the same question multiple times? A: The process was the same. The person might be different, but the question remained the same.
I: And afterwards?
A: They questioned me from 4 in the morning to 11. Then they showed me some police orders, did a full-body search, checked my bags… Didn’t find anything. And then they told me that I had to fly back to my hometown in order to do the de-registration. They said it would only take two days and then I’d be free to go. At that point, I already felt like there was a problem. That I wasn’t going to be let go. I suspected that they wanted to take me to Urumqi in handcuffs and with a bag over my head. If they were going to pay for it. That’s what they wanted to do. I told them that I’d rather buy the ticket and go to Urumqi myself without the handcuffs and bag.
So I bought the ticket myself. Then they took me almost all the way to the plane door, checked that everything looked okay, and left. But I didn’t get on that plane, going to the bathroom or something like that and not getting on the plane. The plane took off and I was left there. And then I went to the Kazakhstan embassy in Beijing. I told them about my problems and asked them what I should do. They told me to fly back if I was afraid. I didn’t have any other way out, so I returned to the airport. I was planning to buy the ticket there, back to Almaty. At that point I turned on my phone and connected to the airport Wi-Fi.
As soon as I connected, I got a call from my wife in Almaty. It sounded like the Chinese police had called my home number.
I: Your wife called you over WeChat?
A: Yes, WeChat. We had a video call. She said that the police from my hometown had just called. They said for me to not run off and to go back to my hometown. It would just take 2 days for the de-registration to be done, they had told me through my wife. So that I wouldn’t run off and would return to my hometown. And then I got a call from my sister, except that when I picked up it wasn’t my sister but the police. You could hear that there was a whole group of them in my sister’s house. And so they started talking to me, asking me why I was running around. They asked me what I was afraid of and why I hadn’t returned – all they needed me to do was de-register. That’s what they said – come here, do the de-registration, and you’re free to go.
I: One question. When they called you, had the plane to Urumqi already landed? The one you bought the ticket for.
A: Yes, yes. They had looked for me and I wasn’t there. They had already started looking for me. And if I didn’t accept their offer, it seemed like they could have jailed my sister.
I: Did they say that?
A: No, but it was more or less implied.
I: That was the understanding.
A: Yes, yes. It was understood. So I had to decide whether to fly back or to stay. And since my sister was now in danger, I decided that okay, I could go and see what they wanted. They asked me where I was. I said I was in the Beijing airport, sitting in the corner in Terminal 3. I showed them my location and the surroundings through WeChat. In half an hour, there were already 4 police officers there. I: And then?
A: And then they questioned me. They asked me where I had gone. I said I had gone to the Kazakhstan embassy. They asked me why. I said because I had been afraid. I had gone there to ask about these problems I had encountered. Nothing more. So then I bought another ticket, with my own money. That one for the morning of the second day.
I: Did they question you for long, those four?
A: No, not long. They detained me and just asked why I had gone to the embassy, why I hadn’t gotten on the plane.
I: Did they handcuff you?
A: In Beijing, no.
I: So they let you get on the plane and fly out yourself?
A: Yes. Because I paid for the ticket. Right? Because I realized that if they paid it’d be with handcuffs and a bag. And with police officers accompanying me. I told them that I hadn’t slept in two days and so I had fallen asleep while the first plane was taking off. That night, two policemen would stay with me to make sure that I didn’t run off. On the morning of the second day, they’d see me all the way to the plane and wouldn’t leave like they had the first time. They’d just stay there and would only leave after the door closed and the plane took off. In Urumqi, 3 police officers would meet me and then handcuff me in the bathroom, after which they put me straight into the police car.
I: That was in Urumqi Terminal 2 or Terminal 3?
A: When I was leaving, Terminal 3 [in Beijing]… In Urumqi, Terminal 2.
I: And they got you on the first floor?
A: Yes, yes.
I: And what happened the next day?
A: They took me to the police station and started interrogating me there. I would spend 4 days there. They didn’t have beds there, just iron – what do you call them? – stools [he may mean benches, but probably not]. We’d sleep there.
I: So when did you arrive in Urumqi? On the second day.
A: At 11 in the morning, or 1.
I: And you were immediately taken to… where? To a kanshousuo (pre-trial detention center)?
A: Yes, a kanshousuo [strictly speaking, this was probably just a paichusuo, or a regular police station with its own detention cells]. And there it’d be 4 days of the same questions again. And on the fourth day – or the fifth day, it was night – I and two local Uyghurs were put in a car and first taken to a hospital. We went there, had everything checked – they took our blood – and were at the education center at 1 or 2 at night. We were shocked. We had imagined a nice building, but it was a jail the second you walked in. All metal doors…
I: Hold on, there’s something I want to understand first. Do you know where it was that they took you straight from the airport? Where exactly? Was it in the city, in downtown Urumqi?
A: From Urumqi, they took me straight to my hometown and to the kanshousuo.
I: Oh, you mean they took you straight to Tacheng?
A: Yes, Tacheng.
I: And how did they take you to Tacheng?
A: By car.
I: By car?
A: Yes, by police car.
I: So that was what… 10 hours or so?
A: It was already 1 in the morning.
I: So you only arrived at 1 in the morning?
A: We left Beijing in the morning. We arrived in Urumqi at 11 or 12. And there the 3 policemen met me and immediately put me in the car to Tacheng.
I: And so when did you get to Tacheng?
A: At night.
I: Late at night?
A: Yes.
I: And that’s where you were in the kanshousuo. For 4 days, you said?
A: Yes, 4 days.
I: And do you know the name of that kanshousuo or where it was located?
A: In the city center.
I: But are there many of those kanshousuos?
A: Yes.
I: But might you know the specific address? A: Xincheng paichusuo [probably 新城派出所].
I: How big was the building?
A: It was about 30 square meters when you entered [the cell], then there’d be other rooms – the police rooms, the basement. There were floors above us too. There were guards. There were the metal doors after you entered, and they just wouldn’t let you go. The guard would watch you. All we did there was sit. They didn’t even give us lunch there. My sister would bring me something and I’d have my dinner and water delivered through the door. For four days, I’d sit and sleep on those iron stools that we had there. It was very cold there.
I: There were no beds?
A: No beds at all.
I: And there were how many of you there? You said there were two Uyghurs with you?
A: No, there were very many people there. Every day we’d get new people who were intended to be sent to the camps. Every day there’d be 5, 6…
I: So, in that room where you spent 4 days – how many square meters was that, about?
A: About 30 square meters. Then you had the guards and the other rooms – offices.
I: So there were no beds, only stools. How many?
A: A row, two rows… Three rows of stools.
I: And how many total?
A: You could probably fit a total of 10-15 people in there.
I: So about 5 stools per row?
A: Yes, about.
I: Was this room always full, or was it somewhat empty? How many people were there?
A: Every day there’d be 4, 5, 6 – sometimes 10 – people arriving to have their names checked before being transferred to a camp. They’d have their blood, etc. checked. A day or two after getting there, they’d be transferred. In my case, I was there for 4-5 days. Don’t know why they kept me there that long.
I: Did you talk to the other people?
A: Yes, we talked.
I: About what?
A: We talked about everything. The kanshousuo had called them all to say that they needed to be sent to the education center. They called them, said they had to come, and they came. [They told me] they’d be sent there.
I: Were they afraid of talking?
A: About what?
I: About the reasons for why they had been taken, their…
A: No, they weren’t. They all knew that they were innocent. It was just an “education center”.
I: And were there cameras?
A: Yes. There were cameras everywhere.
I: And after 4 days you were taken, as you said, to a hospital first?
A: Yes, first to the hospital and then straight to the camp from there.
I: Do you know which hospital?
A: The xianyuan (county hospital).
I: There was just one xianyuan?
A: Yes, just one.
I: And how long were you at the xianyuan? An hour or two?
A: Probably an hour about. Just to check everything.
I: They took your blood as well?
A: Yes.
I: Blood and… what else?
A: Blood. [Chest] scan.
I: And then?
A: And then we went straight to camp.
I: Were there many of you being taken there together? How did they take you? By car?
A: Yes, by police car. In handcuffs.
I: How many of you was there?
A: Two women were there with me.
I: Also in handcuffs? A: Yes.
I: So, the three of you?
A: Yes.
I: And how many police officers?
A: Two.
I: Actually, back in the kanshousuo, was it all men or both men and women?
A: Women, men… everyone.
I: So about 50-50?
A: Well, more men.
I: Were you all in the same room?
A: In the same room during the day. The women who were brought to the kanshousuo were let go in the evening. They’d come during the day to report and then would be let go in the evening.
I: Back home?
A: Yes.
I: And the men…
A: And the men would all stay there.
I: So then they took you to the camp… Do you know approximately where that camp was?
A: Yes, more or less.
I: Maybe even the address?
A: I couldn’t tell you the address. There’s the No. 5 school near there.
I: Right next door? How close was it, about?
A: I couldn’t say exactly…
I: But then how do you know…?
A: That’s what we heard. That the No. 5 school was close by.
I: Where did you hear that from?
A: In the camp. I: From whom?
A: From other people detained there.
I: So what happened on that day when you arrived at the camp?
A: They brought us to a room with 4-5 police officers. They had us all strip down to our underwear. There were two plastic plates – a small one and a slightly bigger one – a plastic spoon, and the cheapest soap possible [that we were given]. After which we’d go to our rooms.
I: So they gave you plates for…
A: Yes, a plate for eating. And a slightly bigger one for washing and whatnot.
I: And your things? What did you have with you when you arrived at the camp? Phone, etc.… Were they all…?
A: I didn’t have anything.
I: Everything had already been taken from you?
A: Back in the kanshousuo, they told us to leave behind everything. My phone had been taken by the police. All my good, normal clothes I gave to my sister so that she could hold on to them for the time being. I only kept a set of athletic clothes.
I: And how big was the camp, about?
A: The camp was a four-story building. Maybe about 200 meters in length. Four stories. I heard that it used to be an old folks home – an elderly care facility – but now it’s become a camp. The room they took me to had about 10 people in there, maybe 12 or 13. It was about 20 square meters. There wasn’t enough space for everybody to sleep, as evidenced by some people sleeping under the bunk beds.
I: So you had one person under the bed, then one person on the first bunk…?
A: Yes. And on each bottom bunk you’d have people sleeping in twos, because of the lack of space. They didn’t do that with the top bunk since it wouldn’t have supported the weight. And that’s how I slept, in those little beds. Top and tail, since there was no space.
I: Did you have pillows?
A: Not enough for everyone. I’d only get one later.
I: Were there cameras in the rooms?
A: Yes, there were.
I: Did you talk amongst yourselves? What was the mood like?
A: There was no mood. How could you have any mood [there]? It was almost forbidden for us to talk during the day. I: Did you spend many hours of each day in this room?
A: All of our time, night and day.
I: So then tell me what your standard schedule was like.
A: The standard schedule… At 6 o’clock, we’d already have the Chinese national anthem playing loudly.
I: That was in the room or outside?
A: In the room. At 6, we’d get up and wash up, then be given a steamed bread bun and boiled water for breakfast. As well as a little bit of porridge. Maybe 5-7 spoonfuls. That’s it. After eating, the veteran detainees would go to study in the daytime. I heard that they’d gather a room of about 80 people, who would sit and study from the morning to the afternoon. 3-4 hours.
I: But you weren’t called?
A: [cut]… There must not have been enough room or something like that. With us, it’d be sitting on the little stools they gave us from 7 or 8 in the morning all the way until noon. Then they’d give us lunch, we’d sleep for an hour, and then continue sitting, all the way until nighttime. 8 hours.
I: Sorry, what did you do between 7 and 12?
A: At 7, we would have finished breakfast and those going to study would have already left. The 5 or 6 of us who were new arrivals would just sit on the little stools there.
I: That’s it?
A: That’s it. We’d sit. They’d give us some books about, you know, Communism. There were 100 rules about things like religion being bad – religion being an opium – that they’d give to us all to read.
I: Was this a thick book or a small one?
A: Small. I mean, only 100 rules, so… There were also thick books about Lei Feng, Mao Zedong, Communists, the anthem… That’s what we had.
I: Do you feel like these books were old or new?
A: New.
I: Recently published?
A: Yes.
Interviewer 2: May I ask a question? When you talk about getting up at 6 and the anthem playing… You said they played the anthem, right?
A: Yes, yes. From the speaker inside the room.
I2: There’s a speaker inside the room? A: Yes, inside the room.
I2: So there was a speaker in each room in the camp?
A: Yes.
I: Did you have to only listen, or did you have to sing as well?
A: Before every breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we’d sing first and then they’d give us permission to eat.
I: Would guards or wardens or anyone like that enter your room?
A: No. Sometimes people would enter to sanitize – to clean the room, the toilet…
I: Was the toilet in the room as well?
A: In our room, there was a toilet. That wasn’t the case in the others, since people would come in from other cells to pee in ours.
I2: Just to clarify – they played music through the speakers and you had to sing along?
A: No, not sing along. The anthem was played in the morning just to…
I2: To wake you up?
A: Yes. At 1 or 2 o’clock [not sure, but possible he meant “after one or two hours”], the speaker would announce that we could stand up, since our legs were tired from sitting for so long, you’d have blood there [also not sure what exactly he means here, maybe numbness]. We’d stand up and move in place a little, about 10 minutes, and then the speaker would tell us to sit back down and we’d sit down to keep sitting some more.
I2: Could you try to estimate how many hours a day you spent sitting?
A: 8 hours. We’d basically spend all the daylight hours sitting, on the small stools. We weren’t allowed to go lie on the bed or move around the room. None of that.
I2: 8 hours over the course of the day.
A: 8 hours of sitting, yes.
I: So there were 5-6 of you in the room who didn’t go to the classes. Did you talk amongst yourselves, or did you just read those books?
A: Well, the rooms were small, and we were all sitting in a row. So yea, we’d talk, little by little. We’d talk little by little, yea.
I: So what kind of people were these? Were they Kazakhs, Uyghurs…?
A: Everyone. Kazakhs, Uyghurs… I: Men and women were separated?
A: Yes, the women were somewhere else.
I: Were there women in your building?
A: There were. But, I mean, we basically never ran into each other.
I: And in the classes, were there both men and women?
A: I heard that it was separated. Yes, separated.
I: I see.
A: I was in that jail for 23 days, and then after the 23 days they took us to another jail. That place was a real jail. The first was an elderly folks home, but the second place was a real jail. They had triple-bunk beds. There was just a small window at the very top for the patrolling policemen to look in on us.
I2: When you talk of the camp that was close to the No. 5 school, that was the first place?
A: Yes, the first place. After 23 days, they called the names of the people who were to go outside, and we went out. That was our first time outside. We went out and had to kneel [on one knee]. There were 200-300 of us.
I: When you were coming out of the first camp?
A: Yes. They had us kneel down, then handcuffed us to one another – my arm to my neighbor’s – and shackled our legs together as well. Then there was a long police bus, and they’d lead us in in pairs. They sat us down and put black hoods over our heads, so that we wouldn’t see anything.
I: This was in the yard?
A: In the yard. There were police with machine guns, standing…
I: In the first camp?
A: In the first camp, when we went out. When they sat us down in the circle and the police…
I: It was a big spacious yard?
A: Yes, a big yard.
I: Bigger than the building, in area?
A: Yes, and closed. We were being treated like real… I mean, we were all innocent. This was just for “study”, right? But we were being treated like real criminals, with leg shackles, handcuffs, and black hoods over our heads. Then they loaded us onto the bus with the hoods over our heads, so we couldn’t see anything, couldn’t see where they were taking us.
I2: They never issued you a formal accusation, is that right? A: No. There were people there who had gone to Friday prayers, or who prayed at work. There were some who had written complaints to the authorities because they were unhappy for having been forced to sell their land for cheap. That’s all forbidden now [legal complaints]. For example, say the local government bought land for a really low price, and they’d file a legal [complaint]… Like, if the local village administrator [forcefully] bought someone’s land and gave them very little for it, and the land owner filed a legal complaint… All these people [the ones filing] were there [in camp]. Also those who had spent too much time in Kazakhstan, over a month, or who had gone to Kazakhstan often, or had a residence permit there. All those were there [in camp] as well.
I: And you never received any kind of document accusing you of anything?
A: No, no, no.
I: You received no documents at all?
A: Absolutely nothing. The people there were innocent. Some were former imams at the mosque. Some had been mosque guards or cleaners. The people who had worked there… They were all there [in the camp]. What were they guilty of? The ones who cleaned the mosques, or who had gone to a Friday prayer once or twice. I mean, they had that registration sheet [at the mosque entrance]… They must have been planning that in advance. The IDs were there [on the registration sheet], so all of them… were taken to study.
I: I just wanted to ask – at the first camp, in the afternoon, what was your schedule like? You’d eat at 1, right?
A: Right.
I: What kind of food was that?
A: Rice, cabbage, all mixed in water [might just mean zhou – the traditional porridge]. That’s it. Meat, [something else, unintelligible] – none of that. Cabbage and rice. In the evenings, we’d have some sort of black-mushroom thing… Couldn’t tell what it was. Some sort of porridge.
I: So you were fed 3 times a day?
A: Yes… We heard that it was best not to eat that mushroom thing we had in the evenings. Because we heard that they put some sort of drug in there, to make men… unable to get aroused…
I: Right. There’ve been some rumors about that.
A: Because some people didn’t eat it – I saw that myself. But they wouldn’t tell us anything. Some of us didn’t know. Now I think that some of them thought that there was something added and refused to eat for this reason, but they wouldn’t tell us why they weren’t eating. They didn’t say anything, we didn’t ask.
I: They weren’t punished for this? For refusing to eat.
A (misunderstanding): Well, if you wanted to survive you had to eat…
I: I mean, if someone refused to eat, could they be punished for it?
A (misunderstanding): I don’t know. After I left there, I heard through the internet that many were turning down the food because it was so bad. No one was eating. That did happen.
I2: What was the exact reason for why you refused to eat? Because of the rumors of impotence?
A: Yes, yes… No, no! I ate it! I ate. I didn’t know. I didn’t know, but later after getting out I heard that they were adding things… to make a man not able to get aroused. Because I’ve been feeling it as well… There isn’t much of a reaction, you know?
I: And there were no women there [at the camp], right?
A: I didn’t see any.
I2: And you believe in those rumors [about impotence]?
A: I do. Because some of the men who were there for a year, you know, without that… And they never turned off the lights. It was always bright and white there.
I: They didn’t turn off the lights?
A: No.
I: The entire night?
A: The entire night. It was white during the day and white during the night. They didn’t allow us to turn them off.
I2: If I may ask a vulgar question, and I apologize in advance if it’s inappropriate…
A: Yes.
I2: You said that if a person spent a year there, and you know such people…
A: Yes.
I2: From Almaty, or from China?
A: From the Chinese population. Uyghurs, Kazakhs…
I: You had people in your room who were already there for almost…
A: Yes, almost a year.
I2: So those who were there for a year, they couldn’t get a male [illustrates erection by straightening finger]…?
A: They probably could, but a weak one, I think.
I: Did they talk about that?
A: No, they didn’t. They don’t even feel it anymore… A weak one, I think. I2: They couldn’t get aroused?
A: Right.
I: Another question – about how many Uyghurs and how many Kazakhs were there?
A: 50-50, about…
I: Any (Han) Chinese?
A: Very… In my room, there weren’t any. There were in other rooms. But very few. Maybe 5%, about. Former drug addicts, murderers… With the matter previously settled, I mean. So, for example, drug addicts who had done their jail time already and weren’t drug addicts anymore… They were all called back in there [into the camps]. There were Uyghurs and Kazakhs, too [among the ex-convicts, probably]… Anyone with a history of drug addiction was summoned and sent to the camp. Or people who had gotten into fights before, went to court, served their sentence or paid the fine – their cases were closed, but still in the computer system, so they’d all be called and sent to the camp. They’d be like: “Am I guilty of something? Yes, I had gotten in a fight in the past, but that case is closed. I was fined or jailed, but I was let out and the matter’s settled.” Right? But they have their computer system, which keeps your history of fights you’ve gotten in 10 years earlier. So they just call all those and send them to camp. Basically 100% of the people there were all innocent, with some just having [past transgressions]… They just viewed me, or some guy next to me, as being “dangerous”, so they decided to have us study for a year, two years, however long…
I: Did they tell you when you arrived how long you would be there for?
A: Nobody knew that. Nobody knew how long they’d be there for.
I: So, what was your schedule in the afternoon like?
A: We’d have an hour to sleep or rest. Then the video camera [probably means loudspeaker] would tell us to get up, and we’d be back to sitting.
I: The books again?
A: The books again.
I: Until dinnertime?
A: Until dinnertime.
I: You didn’t do any exercising [shows military punching motion]?
A: We did in the evening. We’d just [demonstrates marching].
I: In the room?
A: In the room. For an hour or longer. I mean, there was no room. [Demonstrates turning and says something, but not sure if he means “it was too cramped to turn” or “turning was all there was room to do”]. I: Did anybody enter your room during this time? Or was this all done through the loudspeaker?
A: Through the loudspeaker.
I: So you’d just be told to stand, turn, march…?
A: Yes, yes.
I: I have a photo here. Did you have drills like these? [shows photo of men at a camp in Maralbeshi doing military drills in the yard outside]
A: We never even [went or] saw the outside.
I: So just in the…
A: 24 hours a day in the cell. That’s all. What it was like outside… No, none of that.
I: So for 20 days it was all like this?
A: [Nods.]
I: No diversity, nothing new…?
A: [Nods.]
I: And the people in your room – the ones who lived with you – did they ever leave or disappear? Or did everyone who arrived there with you just stay there?
A: They just stayed there.
I: And new people didn’t arrive?
A: New people did arrive. Those [first] 20 days, there were 12 people there when I first arrived, but later it would reach 16.
I: Did any of those 12 leave?
A: No.
I: So everyone who was there with you…?
A: Yes. And then after 23 days, half of us would be called to go to the other jail. Some stayed there [in the first jail].
I: And the second place – was it a camp or a prison?
A: Which one?
I: The second one.
A: The second was a real prison. A new prison. I: But how did they call it? Did they also call it a xuexi zhongxin (“education center”)?
A: Yes, yes. That’s how they called it, but it was a prison. With the construction work just completed. A new prison.
I: But they called it an “education center”?
A: Yes.
I: And how long would you spend there?
A: The rest of my time [in detention], I spent there.
I: Approximately how long? A month?
A: More than a month.
I: And was the schedule there similar?
A: There we started to study [have classes] as well. They gave us permission to study [maybe means “had us study”]. There was a big room there with a metal barrier. We’d walk into the room and there’d be the metal barrier, with a guard standing there, with a machine gun and that [stun baton]…
I: Machine gun?
A: No, not a machine gun, though they probably had handguns... [They had] that electric [means stun baton]… Then we’d go into the room 8-10 people at a time. They didn’t let us all enter at once. Our cell would enter, then the guard would go and get another cell, and have people enter the room group by group. It’d be really full then, 8 [sounds like “eight”, but probably said “eighty”] people. And then they’d lock the metal barrier – there was a lock there. There was a blackboard out front with stuff written down [or “for us to write down”, not sure]. Characters, pinyin… Very easy things that we didn’t need, because this was first-grade material. There were university students and graduate students there, all in that classroom… Who needed that stuff? No one. Because of the metal barrier with its squares, we couldn’t even clearly see what was written there.
I: What about farmers?
A: Tons of those. Yes, lots of those as well.
I: This was difficult for them, I imagine?
A: For them it was difficult, yes. You’d have 70-year-old Kazakhstan farmers [not sure if he just meant “Kazakh”] whose eyesight was too poor to write down or remember those characters. They’d be told that they had to study, and that’s all there was to it. They didn’t tell us that, because we already knew all that stuff… The characters.
I2: Can I ask you: being a Kazakhstan citizen who found himself in this situation, did your telling them that you were a Kazakhstan citizen have any effect on anything?
A: No effect. The last time – during the last interrogation – they admitted that I wasn’t guilty of anything. They told me I had dual citizenship. I asked them: if I had dual citizenship, then why was the Chinese consulate in Kazakhstan giving me a Chinese visa for my Kazakhstan passport? Where was my second Chinese passport? The Chinese consulate in Kazakhstan represents China, right? Why didn’t they tell me back then that I had a dual citizenship and have me get the visa for either the Kazakhstan or Chinese passport [not 100% what he means by getting the visa for the Chinese passport – probably just means going to China without a visa]? That and there’s the law about anyone who gets a foreign citizenship automatically having their Chinese citizenship cancelled. There is such a law. I know this. I told them: this law exists, so why am I in this situation right now? And during that last meeting, they actually told me: yes, you’re not guilty of anything, this is just what our internal policies are like now. We have to sort all of these things out, they said [not sure if this means “we have to follow the rules as ordered” or “we have to sort these contradictions, like yours, out”].
I: When was that last meeting?
A: About a week before they’d release us. They’d be interrogating us every day [not long before the release]. “How many kids do you have?” “Do you want Kazakh citizenship or Chinese citizenship? Choose.” I told them that I didn’t have two citizenships. I explained to them a hundred times that I was a Kazakhstan citizen. I had already handed in my Chinese passport and ID to our government when I got my Kazakhstan citizenship. To an organization in Kazakhstan – I had already given it to them. On that day – on May 22, 2002 – they mailed my Chinese passport and ID to the Chinese consulate. Then they gave me a Kazakhstan passport and ID. Dual citizenship is forbidden by Kazakhstan law too. We have that law. I explained this to them a hundred times. A hundred times. I don’t know if they didn’t know or just didn’t understand.
I2: Could you try to say, if it’s not too difficult, what percentage of the people you were interned with – in the first camp and in the second, together – were ethnic Kazakhs?
A: About half Uyghurs, half Kazakhs. There were about 500-600, right?
I: In the first?
A: Both in the first and second. That was the capacity, you couldn’t fit more. You could see it from the triple bunks. A lot of Hui, too.
I2: Okay. So let’s say 40% Kazakh? 45%?
A: Yes. And 15% Hui. And 1, 2, or 3% [Han] Chinese.
I2: So, roughly speaking, about 40% Kazakh?
A: Yes.
I2: How many of them were citizens of Kazakhstan?
A: There were 3.
I2: In addition to yourself?
A: Those released with me.
I: They were released as well? A: All on the same day.
I2: So there were 4 of you? Or 3?
A: 3. In that jail.
I2: Including yourself?
A: Yes, yes. I don’t know if there were any others from the other jail. That day they released 4. [This is confusing, since I know he was released with Orynbek and Arman, and I’ve never heard of a fourth guy. Might be a misunderstanding / language issue.]
I: Was the way you were treated any different because of your Kazakhstan citizenship?
A: No. Same treatment.
I: Did you hear of anyone being beaten?
A: I heard of it. Didn’t see it.
I: You yourself were not beaten?
A: No.
I: And you weren’t tortured?
A (slightly misunderstanding): Well, if you did something wrong… Like if you fought with someone, or if you said something bad about Communism, or if you didn’t sing the anthem…
I: Then they could punish you?
A: Yes, of course. 100%.
I: How were people punished?
A: They had a jinbishi (solitary confinement room). I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. A small, cold, dark room.
I: How small is “small”? A square meter?
A: Probably a square meter.
I: And you get locked in there and…
A: Yes.
I: But you yourself were never in there?
A: No, never. I2: I just want to clarify. Were you ever tortured or physically harmed?
A: Physically… How to put it…? We had the zuzhang (group leader)…
I: From among the detainees?
A: Yes, from the detainees. There were Chinese there [not sure what he means – maybe that the group leader was Chinese, though he said earlier that there were no ethnic Han in his cell, but maybe this is the second camp, or maybe the group leader didn’t actually live in their cell]. There was a time when he tried to hit me so that I would sing louder.
I: He tried to?
A: Yes. He said: sing the national anthem louder!
I: But didn’t actually hit you?
A: No, he didn’t.
I: For the second camp… Do you know where that was?
A: I heard it was by the saimachang (horse racetrack).
I: The saimachang in Tacheng?
A: Yes.
I: There’s only one there?
A: Yes, yes.
I: So you had hoods over your heads when you arrived there?
A: Yes, with our arms and legs chained to one another’s.
I: And so you couldn’t see what the outside was like?
A: No, not with the black hoods.
I: And when were the hoods taken off?
A: After we entered that building. In the interior of the prison.
I: So they took off the hoods, the handcuffs…
A: Yes. More or less all to their rooms. [Not sure what he means – possibly that they kept the same cellmates as before.]
I: So how big were the rooms there? How many people?
A: 30-40 square meters. There were almost 30 of us living there. Every day there’d be more people coming. At the start it was a little over 20, then another 10 arrived.
I: And there were cameras in this room too?
A: Yes. The toilet in the room as well.
I (misunderstanding): Where was it [the camera] in the toilet? Above you?
A (misunderstanding): The toilet was in the corner [of the room]. An open one.
I: Ah! But was there a camera in the toilet also?
A: The toilet wasn’t separate. It was in the corner of the room. And there were cameras in all four corners. A camera here, another there…
I2 (to I): What was he wearing? Since at the beginning they stripped down to their underwear.
I (to A): They gave you clothes, right?
A: No, they didn’t. We had to wear our own.
I2: [not sure if “athletic” or “your own”] clothes.
A: Yes, yes. Our own clothes.
I: But when you first got to the camp, you undressed? In the first camp.
A: Yes.
I: Then they let you get dressed again.
A: Yes.
I: Then in the second camp as well… And was it almost the same in the second camp? Did they also give you a plate, etc.?
A: No. They told us to bring our [old] plates with us.
I: From the first camp to the second?
A: Yes.
I2: What did they tell you regarding Mao? What topics did they cover? You were studying all the time, right?
A: Yes.
I2: Chinese history…? Maybe the revolution, yea?
A: No, just some rubbish. Songs. “Mao is our sun, without him we are slaves.” All that Communism rubbish about how great our life was now [thanks to Communism]. I: Did they talk about Xi Jinping?
A: Yes, they did.
I: What specifically?
A: That Xi Jinping was a real leader. Our ideology. That we should do what he said. That he would lead us to a good life.
I: They said that to you in class?
A: In class, yea…
I: So, I want to try to understand the schedule you had there again. So in the second camp – in the jail – you also got up at 6 in the morning?
A: Uh-huh. Same schedule.
I: The same?
A: Yes.
I: But did you spend your mornings sitting or did you actually go out somewhere?
A: Where? In the second…?
I: In the mornings, after breakfast, did you just sit in your room?
A: Yes, we sat.
I: In the second camp?
A: Yes.
I: And also read books?
A: Yes. And when the time came, we’d go to study [in the classroom]. In the… There was the hall, and [down the hall] there was the big room. We’d sit for 3-4 hours.
I: And what time was that, about?
A: Because you couldn’t fit everyone in there… Sometimes we’d go in the mornings, with another group in the afternoon, and then another in the evening. My classes were in the morning.
I: 3-4 hours a day?
A: Yes.
I: And there were instructors there? A: There were teachers, yes.
I: So, you’re there, sitting in that room. How many of you are there?
A: 80.
I: Approximately 80?
A: Yes.
I: And there’s a guard standing in the corner?
A: Yes.
I: One?
A: Two, one… [sounds like it may have varied]
I: With the stun baton?
A: Yes.
I: And then there [out front] you have the board and the instructor?
A: Yes.
I: Was it a woman? A man?
A: A woman.
I: And all 80 of you were men?
A: Yes. There were women in other classes, but there weren’t any in mine. There were women in other classes… There were women in the second jail. Maybe about 80 of them. 50-60…
I: Why do you think it was 60?
A: There were two female cells across from where we were. You couldn’t see them, but sometimes we’d see them as they went to class.
I: And this was not a 4-story [camp] anymore? This was something else?
A: Just one story. It was not a 3-story [4-story] – this was like a real prison. Just one.
I: Did you get to go outside there?
A: Not at all.
I: And they didn’t [let you] turn out the lights there either?
A: No, [they didn’t]. I2: They didn’t turn the lights off inside the cell?
A: Yes.
I2: They were on the whole time?
A: Yes.
I: And how did you sleep? Did you cover your eyes, or did you just [makes passing out motion]…?
A: We had gotten used to it by then. You get used to it. No big deal.
I2: It was like that everywhere – in the education center and in the camp? [likely means “in both camps”]
A: Yes. There was no darkness at all… I [also] didn’t drink any tea. Nothing but boiled water for 2 months. And it was completely forbidden for relatives to bring us any food. They wouldn’t accept it.
I: So, your relatives there were… your sister?
A: Yes.
I: Anyone else?
A: No.
I: Just the one sister?
A: Yes.
I2: Did she know where you were?
A: Yes, she knew.
I: Could she visit you? Could she come see you?
A: No. We could only talk over the phone.
I: Did that happen often?
A: No. Maybe once every week or two.
I: How did that work? Did you have to sign up somewhere and wait for your turn, or how?
A: No…
I: Or did they just summon you and say “there, go!”
A: No… We’d have a phone call once a week, but always with a guard next to us. To watch over you so that you not say anything bad. And they warned us beforehand, telling us to say that everything was great, that everything was wonderful. It was forbidden to say anything bad. They probably recorded everything that was said in case you said something bad, and there was the guard there too.
I: And how long did a single call last?
A: 5 minutes. That’s all. To say how great and wonderful everything was. “We’re studying, it’s great here!”
I: But did they summon you there? Did they come in and say “Amanzhan, there’s a phone call for you”, or did you yourself request it?
A: They called us. Every week or two, everyone would have phone calls. They’d have a gongshi (office) there, right? They informed us once a week.
I: You all went there together?
A: In turns. This day it’d be this section [of the prison], that day it’d be that section…
I: Was the food all the same [as in the first camp]?
A: Yes.
I: So – porridge, steamed buns…
A: Yes, yes. The same.
I: And the mushroom dish?
A: Yes.
I2: From time to time, Kazakhstan’s foreign affairs minister makes a statement where he doesn’t talk about the camps specifically – he just says that people were “freed” – and also makes mention of “dual citizenship”. Do you believe that Kazakhstan played a role in your being freed? I mean, you mention that you were let out with other Kazakhstan citizens. The three of you. Do you believe that this was Kazakhstan’s influence?
A: I do think so, because there were a lot of requests filed. We sent them [not sure who “we” is], others did as well, and I heard that Kazakhstan had sent them to China. Asking about us – where we were, how we were, what the reason for the detention was. They sent several diplomatic notes to China. You know, diplomatic notes – a sort of formal request.
I2: A diplomatic note from where? From Almaty or… [“from Xinjiang”, I think]?
A: From Kazakhstan’s minister.
I2: So from Kazakhstan?
A: Yes, from Kazakhstan.
I2: About the general situation? Not yours specifically?
A: Yes. I: And in the second camp you also don’t know anyone who left or disappeared? From your cell.
A: I only know – I only saw – us three Kazakhstan citizens. I didn’t hear or see any of the locals being released.
I: So in your cell – of the people who were there – did anyone disappear, vanish, go away?
A: No.
I: So everyone who was there on Day 1 when you arrived was still there when you left? No one was freed?
A: Yes, yes.
I: Did you become friends with anyone? Were there any relations between you? Did people trust each other?
A: There was trust. There was a Kazakh there who was detained in the June of last year. [He had] a residence permit. A lot of people who went to and from Kazakhstan often were getting detained. His wife and kids are all in Almaty. He had already filed his application for a Kazakhstan citizenship to the ministry. Twenty days before he was supposed to get the citizenship, he went to China while he still had the [Kazakhstan] residence permit. And he was detained. In June 2017. He still hasn’t obtained his Kazakhstan citizenship because he needs to sign off on it. But he’s still there in the camp, since the Chinese government detained him and is not letting him go. [Pretty sure he’s talking about Erbaqyt Otarbai.]
I: You got to know him?
A: Yes.
I: He was in your cell?
A: Yes.
I: And those others who you said were from Kazakhstan. I think you said there were two?
A: Yes.
I: Were they also in your cell?
A: No, in other cells.
I: How did you usually talk to them?
A: We almost never talked.
I: So did you have any opportunities to talk with people in other cells? Or just with those in your own?
A: Just with those in our own. Very few opportunities [otherwise].
I: And you weren’t allowed to talk to each other in the classes either?
A: We weren’t. Source: https://shahit.biz/supp/4981_8.pdf
Victims among relatives
Rafail Umit (4824)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc voxpot mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQcfjHpTfbM New Yorker 3D rendition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUyo5dxke8 photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/4981_1.jpg interview summary: https://shahit.biz/supp/4981_7.pdf full interview (Testimony 1): https://shahit.biz/supp/4981_8.pdf
Entry created: 2019-07-14 Last updated: 2020-05-15 Latest status update: 2020-02-18 5023. Nurshat Toqtasyn
Chinese ID: 65402619850601??O? (Mongghulkure)
Basic info
Age: 34 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: documents withheld When problems started: before 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Serik Toqtasyn, born on November 13, 1980, is now a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's relation to testifier brother
About the victim
Nurshat Toqtasyn, born on June 1, 1985, is a Kazakhstan citizen. His Kazakh ID number is 031121527(maybe 4, not clear). He went to China in May 2016 and lost his passport after a while and since he did not know anything about law and about citizenship, he was afraid of applying for a new passport of Kazakhstan and decided to stay in China with his relatives' advice. His case was discovered by the local authorities in August 2019 and the police are not allowing him to get his documents reissued.
Victim's location
Zhaosu county, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
When victim was detained
May 2016
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status cannot have his documents issued
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc8h7T5QLbs
Entry created: 2019-07-19 Last updated: 2019-07-19 Latest status update: 2019-07-02 5026. Lutfy Omer
Chinese ID: 6501??201708????O? (Urumqi)
Basic info
Age: 3 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): relative(s)|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party
Testimony 1|4: Sadam Abdusalam, as reported by Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (father)
Testimony 2|6|9: Sadam Abdusalam, originally from Xinjiang but now an Australian citizen. (father)
Testimony 3: Sadam Abdusalam, as reported by Buzzfeed News. (father)
Testimony 5: Sadam Abdusalam, as reported by The Guardian. (father)
Testimony 7|8: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia's national broadcaster, founded in 1929.
About the victim name: Lutifer (Lutfy) Omer* gender: male ethnicity: Uyghur age: born in August 2017 place of origin: born in Urumchi city place of residence: Urumchi
Father: Sadam Abdusalam, an Australian citizen, currently in Australia Mother: Nedire Omer (Nadila Wumaier), a Chinese citizen, currently in Urumchi, China
Lutifer obtained Australian citizenship in February 2019. Since his birth in August 2017, he has not been able to leave China to join his father in Australia. His mother was detained for one week (some reports say two weeks) when Lutifer was six months old in early 2018 (in some reports shortly after she gave birth). One report mentions, that during his mother's detention, Lutifer stayed with his grandparents, another report mentions that he was detained with her. His mother was released from detention, because she was breastfeeding Lutifer, but she was told that she would be imprisoned for five years once Lutifer turned one year old. Lutifer would be given to a state-run orphanage where he would be adopted by a Han Chinese family. However, since this first detention, Lutifer and his mother have not been detained again, but placed under town arrest in Urumchi. His mother wishes to take Lutifer to Australia to join his father.
Lutifer's case was made public on July 15, 2019. Two days later, ABC news reported that the Australian government has formally asked China to allow Lutifer and his mother to leave the country.
* No publicly available source mentions Lutifer's last name. However, a court document refers to him by his initials "LW" and to his mother Nedire Omer (Chinese pinyin: Nadila Wumaier) as "Ms. W". It is therefore to be assumed that Lutifer carries his mother's last name. The same court document also mentions that Lutifer's father is not registered on his birth certificate, making it very unlikely that Lutifer would carry his father's first (or last) name as his last name.
Victim's location with his mother at home in Urumchi
Testimony 9: in Australia
When victim was detained not detained
Likely (or given) reason for detention no reason given
Victim's status under town arrest, his mother' documents have been confiscated and she cannot leave China
Testimony 7: Australia’s Foreign Ministry has raised the issue with Chinese diplomats on multiple occasions, however, sources close to the Chinese government report that China insists the case is an “internal matter” and will merely publicly express willingness to cooperate.
Testimony 9: on December 11, 2020, his father reported that Lutfy and his mother both arrived in Australia, with the family now reunited.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
The first non-anonymous report by father about Lutifer: four corners video 'tell the world' (Testimony 1): https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/tell-the-world/11311228 (15 JUL 2019) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-17/uyghur-china-response-four-corners-xinjiang-detention/113167 52. (17 JUL 2019) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-49013142 (17 JUL 2019)
Also mentioned anonymously here: http://channeltherage.libsyn.com/episode-49-a-uyghur-muslim-refugees-desperate-plea. (Testimony 2) (29 JUN 2018) https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/australia-boy-xinjiang-china-uighur-muslims (Testimony 3) (19 FEB 2019) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-20/australian-diplomats-called-on-to-help-uyghur-family/1082955 6 (Testimony 4) (20 FEB 2019) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47301766 (20 FEB 2019) https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-father-separated-from-baby-son-by-uighur-crackdown-speaks-o ut (22 FEB 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/06/revealed-five-australian-children-trapped-in-china-ami d-uighur-crackdown (Testimony 5) (5 APR 2019) https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2018/7/9/the-uighur-muslim-crisis-is-worse-than-you-think. (9 JUL 2019)
Additional coverage: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-24/china-hostage-diplomacy-affecting-australian-toddler/1163179 4 (Testimony 7) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-25/sadam-abdusalam-uyghur-family-q+a-australia-china/1199880 8 (Testimony 8)
Additional information
His father, Sadam Abdusalam, came to Australia in 2009 as a student, applied for asylum and later became an Australian citizen in 2014. He is now living and working in Sydney, Australia. Sadam and his wife Nedire Omer (Nadila Wumaier) got married in Xinjiang in 2016. Sadam returned to Australia in 2017 to work while his wife stayed in Xinjiang with their son waiting for her spouse visa for Australia to be approved. However, she had her passport confiscated and never obtained a visa.
Miscellaneous media evidence
Context: Nadire Omer returned to Xinjiang in April 2017, having her documents confiscated and thereby unable to leave the country to join her fiance, Abdusadam, in Australia. In August of that year, she gave birth to their child, Lutfy, to whom Australia would grant citizenship in February 2019. However, neither Nadire nor Lutfy have been allowed to leave the country and have remained under surveillance.
On February 23, 2020, Abdusadam's question was aired on the Australian TV show "Q&A", in which he asked Wang Xining, the deputy head of the Chinese embassy in Australia, why his fiancee and son were not being allowed to leave China and join him. In response, Wang Xining suggested that it was because Nadire and Lutfy themselves did not wish it. Within two days, Nadire posted a photo from Urumqi in which she directly contradicted this, holding up a sign saying "I want to leave and be with my husband. 2020.02.25".
Photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/misc_5026.png Source: https://twitter.com/SMusapir/status/1232116450875170816
Victims among relatives
Nadire Omer (5027)
Supplementary materials
4corners documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-axd1Ht_J8 Testimony 6: https://twitter.com/SMusapir/status/1207963008695037952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Testimony 9: https://twitter.com/SMusapir/status/1337174612208074753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw photo with mother: https://shahit.biz/supp/5026_1.png father w/ Lutfy's passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/5026_2.png citizenship application decision: https://shahit.biz/supp/5026_3.pdf photos: https://shahit.biz/supp/5026_6.jpg
Entry created: 2019-07-22 Last updated: 2021-01-05 Latest status update: 2020-12-11 5075. Heyrulla Muhemmet
Chinese ID: 65300119820424??O? (Atush)
Basic info
Age: 37 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"terrorism" Health status: --- Profession: tradesperson
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Heyrulla Muhemmet, originally from Atush but now an Australian citizen. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent around three weeks in a detention center in Urumqi. (the victim)
Testimony 2: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia, as reported by The Australian.
Testimony 3: Heyrulla Muhemmet, as reported by Voice of America. (the victim)
About the victim
Heyrulla Muhemmet (referred to on Australian television as "Hairullah Mai") is a plasterer. Originally from Atush, he is now an Australian citizen and lives in Melbourne.
He has a wife and stepson, both of whom are in Xinjiang.
Victim's location
In Australia.
When victim was detained
He was detained at the Chengdu airport in July-August 2017 while flying back to Xinjiang (presumably to see his wife and stepson).
He was then put on a plane to Urumqi, where he would be held in a detention center outside the city for about 3 weeks. Two weeks into his detention, he was visited by an Australian diplomat from the Beijing embassy.
After his release, he would stay with his wife and son, but would soon be ordered to leave Xinjiang and banned from visiting for 5 years. Likely (or given) reason for detention
According to the "Four Corners" report in which Heyrulla gave his eyewitness account, he was detained for being a potential terrorist.
Victim's status
Released and back in Australia. However, he is banned from visiting Xinjiang (or possibly China altogether) for 5 years now. His wife and stepson are still in Xinjiang.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Heyrulla's is an eyewitness account.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, who confirmed providing him assistance after his detention, were directly involved in the case.
Additional information
Heyrulla is one of three Australian citizens who were detained in China (and later managed to return).
Eyewitness account featured on ABC's "Four Corners": https://www.abc.net.au/4corners/tell-the-world/11311228
Voice of America coverage: https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/china-targets-foreign-nationals-uighur-origin
Anonymous mentions: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-25/three-australians-were-detained-in-chinas-xinjiang-camps/1042 9116 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/beijings-hidden-hitlist-targets-100-fugitives-here/news-story/ac3 39c63d1dfeeaf05a0e85f15cdf730
Heyrulla does not mention being subjected to forced labor while at the No. 1 detention center (where he was allegedly held), but there is some evidence for this practice existing there.
Eyewitness account
[The following is the transcript of the victim’s account, together with the reporter’s narration, as presented on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Four Corners” television program in July 2019. Quotes from the victim are preserved in their original, retaining any grammatical errors.]
37-year-old Melbourne plasterer, Heyrulla Mai [sic], is one of three Australian citizens who have been jailed in Xinjiang. He’s speaking out for the first time.
Heyrulla:
“It’s bit hard to explain, in my feeling at that time. Yea, never been happen like that before, in my life.” In August 2017, while traveling on his Australian passport, Heyrulla was questioned, and then detained, at China’s Chengdu Airport.
Heyrulla:
“When I go to that detention center in Chengdu, they put chain on my ankle, put on a handcuff on my hand. So I just be shocked, because I don’t know what’s the reason why I… they should to do this to me.”
Heyrulla wasn’t allowed to call the Australian embassy or his family. Security forces marched him onto a plane and flew him to Xinjiang. He says he was brought here [satellite image of detention compound] – to this detention center near Urumqi – and put in a cell with around 40 other men.
Heyrulla:
“Yea… There is not enough space. You just lie down properly and turn around, something like that – you can’t do that. We just sleeping 2 hours, after 2 hours we wake up, and then we standing 2 hours, and then they wake up, you going to sleep. Something like that.”
Classified as a potential terrorist, each day the Australian citizen was forced to undergo 6 hours of indoctrination, praising the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.
Heyrulla:
“You have to watch the brainwashing program TV. There’s TV, in the detention center, in that room. That TV, the people is talking about Communist Party’s rules and then, Xi Jinping’s good. Something like that.”
After two weeks, Heyrulla says he received a visit from an Australian official who introduced himself as Mark, from the Beijing embassy.
Heyrulla:
“He trying to ask the officials – the Chinese officials – this guy asking me: ‘Why are you guys put him to the detention center and then lock him up about two weeks, more than two weeks? What’s the reason?’ And then, the Chinese official says: ‘Still no time to answer to this question.’”
A week later, Heyrulla was released, to be with his wife and his stepson. But authorities ordered him to leave Xinjiang and banned him from visiting for 5 years. Heyrulla’s wife was blocked from leaving with him.
Heyrulla:
“She just keep saying: ‘Don’t leave me alone, don’t leave me alone. Take me with you. I can’t live without you.’ That feeling is, you know, break my heart. I just left. Even I can’t turn around and see her again, because I, from the far away, near the gate, I can see… see her just crying and crying.”
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-axd1Ht_J8
Supplementary materials
4corners documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-axd1Ht_J8 still from 4corners: https://shahit.biz/supp/5075_2.png Testimony 1: https://shahit.biz/supp/5075_4.mp4
Entry created: 2019-07-30 Last updated: 2020-10-20 Latest status update: 2020-01-18 5136. Hemdan Hushtar
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): relative(s)|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
RFA report (https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/ana-bala-07232019174213.html)
Victim's relation to testifier
No relation.
About the victim
Hemdan Hushtar, a US citizen born in Virginia in October 2015.
Victim's location
United States of America.
When victim was detained
His mother took him with her on a trip to her hometown in Ghulja (from the US) in April 2017. After arrival, she had her passport confiscated, which resulted in both her and her son being trapped in Ghulja for over two years. In May 2019, the authorities finally returned her her documents. In June, she and her son went to France, before finally reuniting with the father in the US in July.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
He was stuck in China because of his mother's passport being confiscated.
Victim's status
Now back in the United States.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? The victim's father reported the situation.
Additional information
---
Victims among relatives
Patigul Sadiqjan (5137)
Supplementary materials
US passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/5136_1.jpeg
Entry created: 2019-08-23 Last updated: 2019-08-23 Latest status update: 2019-07-23 5312. Memetimin Nasir
Chinese ID: 6531??19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: 35-55 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Kashgar Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): related to going abroad|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Muyesser Temel, as reported by Buzzfeed News. (sister)
Testimony 2: Muyesser Temel, as reported by Voice of America. (sister)
About the victim
Mehmet Emin Nasir, a seller of Turkish curtains holding Turkish citizenship. He was living with his family in Kashgar until his arrest.
Victim's location
[Presumably in Kashgar]
When victim was detained
September 9, 2017
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Holding Turkish citizenship
Victim's status
Unclear
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 1-2: from her mother, who had gotten a phone call from relatives in Xinjiang.
Additional information Relatives have been in touch with Turkish authorities, who have repeatedly said that they were negotiating with the Chinese counterparts. However, nothing concrete has been revealed to the family.
BuzzFeed coverage (Testimony 1): https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/turkey-uighurs-china-muslim-internment-camps
Voice of America coverage (Testimony 2): https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/china-targets-foreign-nationals-uighur-origin
Victims among relatives
Yehya Qurban (5314), Amine Qurban (5315)
Entry created: 2019-09-25 Last updated: 2020-10-20 Latest status update: 2020-01-18 5314. Yehya Qurban
Chinese ID: 65312619660701??O? (Kaghilik)
Basic info
Age: 54 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Kashgar Status: house/town arrest When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): related to going abroad|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Buzzfeed News. (daughter)
Testimony 2: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Euronews. (daughter)
Testimony 3|5: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (daughter)
Testimony 4: Local government employee, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (from same town/region)
About the victim
Yahya Qurban, a 52-year-old man holding Turkish citizenship (has been a Turkish citizen for 40 years). He had been living in Urumqi with his family (Testimony 3: where he ran a shop and would travel between Turkey and Xinjiang for trade.)
Testimony 3: he is originally from Kargilik County.
Testimony 5: he migrated to Turkey with his family when he was 13.
Victim's location
Testimony 4: in Kashgar.
When victim was detained
Testimony 2: On the 11th of September 2017, the victims' daughter Hankiz received a message from her mother that read "the police are taking us, please contact the Consulate".
Testimony 3: he and his wife were sent to Kargilik County after the arrest.
Testimony 3: Hankiz received a call from Yehya in late 2019. He warned her not to become involved in any "untoward" matters. 2-3 months later, he called again (together with his wife, Amine). Hankiz believes there was someone sitting next to them during the call. (There have been multiple calls since then, but some were disconnected if they did not go "as expected".)
Testimony 5: Arrested on September 10, 2017. In a video chat, Yehya told Hanqiz that he and Amine were held in an internment camp and released in October 2019. Yehya's Turkish passport had been confiscated in 2017.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Holding Turkish citizenship
Testimony 3: "Being witness to crimes committed against Uyghurs."
Victim's status
Since the detention, there has been no news about them at all. Ankara has been telling the victim's daughter that the situation has been forwarded to the Consulate General in Beijing and the response is expected. When the victim's daughter communicates with the Consulate General in Beijing, they say " please wait," and this has been going on for over 2 years.
Testimony 4: One source said that Yehya and Amine were "under his jurisdiction and were not permitted to return to Turkey".
Testimony 5: On May 13, 2021, Yehya and Amine called their children in a monitored video chat that lasted almost 30 minutes. They hadn't seen each other for 4 years [as previous calls were audio only]. Hanqiz provided a recording of the video chat to RFA. Two unknown people were sitting with Yehya and Amine in the call. Hanqiz believes they were security personnel. Currently, Yehya and Amine are unable to travel from Kaghilik to Urumqi. They are living in an apartment complex called "Karlik" [which RFA imply might be a residential camp, but this is unconfirmed].
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 1-2: Her mother Amina, as she was being detained, sent the following voice message to Hankiz: "They’re taking us away, contact the embassy”.
Testimony 4: this is a local government official, presumably with direct knowledge of the case.
Testimony 5: Hanqiz spoke to her parents via video chat.
Additional information
The victim's four children are all in Turkey.
Buzzfeed coverage (Testimony 1): https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/turkey-uighurs-china-muslim-internment-camps
Euronews coverage (Testimony 2): https://tr.euronews.com/2019/04/18/cin-deki-toplama-kamplarinda-turk-vatandaslari-da-mi-tutuluyor
RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/couple-04302021171012.html (Testimony 3-4) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/turkish-05192021191321.html (Testimony 5)
Voice of America mention: https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/china-targets-foreign-nationals-uighur-origin
Testimony 5: His children in Turkey have been able to call him and his wife once every 2-3 months since late 2019.
Victims among relatives
Amine Qurban (5315), Memetimin Nasir (5312)
Supplementary materials
Turkish passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/5314_1.jpg photo with wife: https://shahit.biz/supp/5314_2.jpg
Entry created: 2019-09-28 Last updated: 2021-07-07 Latest status update: 2021-05-19 5315. Amine Qurban
Chinese ID: 65312619690701??E? (Kaghilik)
Basic info
Age: 51 Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Kashgar Status: house/town arrest When problems started: July 2017 - Sep. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): related to going abroad|--- Health status: --- Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Buzzfeed News. (daughter)
Testimony 2: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Euronews. (daughter)
Testimony 3|5: Hanqiz Qurban, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (daughter)
Testimony 4: Local government employee, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (from same town/region)
About the victim
Amina Qurban, an Uyghur woman with Turkish citizenship who had been living in Urumqi. She's been a Turkish citizen for 40 years.
Testimony 3: she is originally from Kargilik County. She and her husband owned a shop in Urumqi.
Victim's location
Testimony 4: in Kashgar.
When victim was detained
Testimony 2: On the 11th of September 2017, the victims' daughter Hankiz received a message from her mother that read "the police are taking us, please contact the Consulate".
Testimony 3: she and her husband were sent to Kargilik County after the arrest.
Testimony 3: Hankiz received a call from her father in late 2019. He warned her not to become involved in any "untoward" matters. 2-3 months later, he called again (together with Amine). Hankiz believes there was someone sitting next to them during the call. (There have been multiple calls since then, but some were disconnected if they did not go "as expected".) Testimony 5: Arrested on September 10, 2017. In a video chat, Yehya (Hanqiz's father) told Hanqiz that he and Amine were held in an internment camp and released in October 2019.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Holding Turkish citizenship
Testimony 3: "Being witness to crimes committed against Uyghurs."
Victim's status
Since the detention, there has been no news about them at all. Ankara has been telling the victim's daughter that the situation has been forwarded to the Consulate General in Beijing and the response is expected. When the victim's daughter communicates with the Consulate General in Beijing, they say " please wait," and this has been going on for over 2 years.
Testimony 4: One source said that Yehya and Amine were "under his jurisdiction and were not permitted to return to Turkey".
Testimony 5: On May 13, 2021, Yehya and Amine called their children in a monitored video chat that lasted almost 30 minutes. They hadn't seen each other for 4 years [as previous calls were audio only]. Hanqiz provided a recording of the video chat to RFA. Two unknown people were sitting with Yehya and Amine in the call. Hanqiz believes they were security personnel. Currently, Yehya and Amine are unable to travel from Kaghilik to Urumqi. They are living in an apartment complex called "Karlik" [which RFA imply might be a residential camp, but this is unconfirmed].
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 1-2: Her mother Amina, as she was being detained, sent the following voice message to Hankiz: "They’re taking us away, contact the embassy”.
Testimony 4: this is a local government official, presumably with direct knowledge of the case.
Testimony 5: Hanqiz spoke to her parents via video chat.
Additional information
The victim's four children are all in Turkey.
Buzzfeed coverage (Testimony 1): https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/meghara/turkey-uighurs-china-muslim-internment-camps
Euronews coverage (Testimony 2): https://tr.euronews.com/2019/04/18/cin-deki-toplama-kamplarinda-turk-vatandaslari-da-mi-tutuluyor
RFA coverage: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/couple-04302021171012.html (Testimony 3-4) https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/turkish-05192021191321.html (Testimony 5)
Voice of America mention: https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/china-targets-foreign-nationals-uighur-origin
Testimony 5: Her children in Turkey have been able to call her and her husband once every 2-3 months since late 2019.
Victims among relatives
Yehya Qurban (5314), Memetimin Nasir (5312)
Supplementary materials
Turkish passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/5315_1.jpg photo with husband: https://shahit.biz/supp/5315_2.jpg
Entry created: 2019-09-28 Last updated: 2021-07-07 Latest status update: 2021-05-19 5416. Mewlude Hilalidin (毛丽旦·依拉吾冬)
Chinese ID: 654101198607011762 (Ghulja City)
Basic info
Age: 34 Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: --- Status: sentenced (10 years) When problems started: Oct. 2017 - Dec. 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"separatism" Health status: --- Profession: education
Testifying party
Testimony 1|2|3|5|6: Medine Hilalidin, originally from Ghulja City but now a citizen of Turkey. (sister)
Testimony 4: Medine Hilalidin, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (sister)
About the victim
Mewlude Hilalidin went to Turkey in 2006 as an international student, obtaining a degree in business administration from Istanbul University. She returned to China in late 2012 / early 2013, working as an English and Turkish instructor at a private school. She is a Turkish citizen.
Address: No. 33 Residential Area, Alley No. 5, Ili Street, Ghulja City.
Chinese passport: G41576042.
Victim's location
[Unclear, as she's been sentenced.]
When victim was detained
She was taken to a camp at the end of 2017. In May 2019, she was released, but was again arrested on June 12, 2019 on suspicion of separatism. Three months later, it was learned that she is to be tried in court. In December 2019, the testifier learned that Mewlude had been sentenced to 10 years.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Her second detention was on "separatism" charges. The testifier mentions that she studied in Turkey legally and never got involved in any political activities there, and says that her only "crime" is being Uyghur and having studied in Turkey.
Victim's status Presumably serving a 10-year sentence.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Not stated.
Additional information
The testifier mentions that she and her husband have been unable to contact their relatives for over 2.5 years now (as of September 2019).
Radio Free Asia coverage: https://www.rfa.org/uyghur/xewerler/qamaq-bolgunchilik-10042019181557.html
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrcfkXk6T80 Testimony 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzTFCTs_F6I Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZSmuKMk72s Testimony 5: https://twitter.com/DilReyhan/status/1342818927341146112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Testimony 6: https://twitter.com/KampMagdurlar/status/1346737759474614277?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Chinese passport: https://shahit.biz/supp/5416_2.png Turkish ID document: https://shahit.biz/supp/5416_5.jpg Turkish ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/5416_7.png
Entry created: 2019-10-24 Last updated: 2021-01-08 Latest status update: 2021-02-09 5674. Nurqalifa Qanadil
Chinese ID: n/a (outside China)
Basic info
Age: under 18 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: Ili Status: house/town arrest When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party (submitted by third party)
Ablaikhan Muhtarhan
Victim's relation to testifier nephew
About the victim
Nurqalifa Kanadil, son of Qanadil Muhtarhan (2181), is 6 years old. He was born in Kazakhstan.
Address: Shatyrtau village, Huocheng county [not clear which village this is, however].
Victim's location
[Presumably in Ili.]
When victim was detained not stated
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status cannot make it back to Kazakhstan, despite being a Kazakhstan citizen
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? not stated Additional information
---
Victims among relatives
Qanadil Muhtarhan (2181)
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzOdbMeDJWc
Entry created: 2019-12-04 Last updated: 2021-03-22 Latest status update: 2019-11-05 7065. Mehmet Ali Kashgarli
Chinese ID: 6531??19661215??O? (---)
Basic info
Age: 54 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Kashgar Status: sentenced (15 years) When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|"terrorism" Health status: has problems Profession: private business
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Ahmet Kaşgarlı, as reported by Euronews. (brother)
Testimony 2: Uyghur Transitional Justice Database, a project documenting the Uyghur victims of the repressions in Xinjiang.
Testimony 3: Ahmet Kaşgarlı, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (brother)
Testimony 4: Anonymous, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (relation unclear)
About the victim
Mehmet Ali Kasgarli is a Turkish citizen for 32 years and he is not a holding any other citizenship. He went to China for business on the 24th of April 2017 and he was taken from his home by the police.
Testimony 3/4: he moved to Turkey in 1989, then moved back to Xinjiang in 2001 and opened a clothing store in Urumqi. He is an acquaintance of victim Abdujelil Helil {3377}. He is a father of four.
Victim's location
Testimony 3-4: Qalghach Binam Prison in Peyziwat County.
When victim was detained
Testimony 1: The victim was taken from his home when he was here for business on the 24th of April 2017.
Testimony 2: sentenced to 15 years.
Testimony 3: He was first sentenced to 15 years and a fine of 74 million yuan on 31 July 2017 by the Kashgar Intermediate Court. Ahmet heard about this sentence in 2019 from the Chinese government, but was never provided a court judgement. In January 2018, that conviction was overturned on the basis of "irregularities". The conviction was then upheld at a secret retrial on 17 March 2021 in Qalghach Binam Prison, Peyziwat County. [This was the same retrial as Abdujelil Helil.]
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Allegedly for "financing terrorist organizations".
Victim's status
Testimony 2: sentenced.
Testimony 4: The anonymous source says that he looked "very emotionally and physically weak" at the retrial, implying he may have health issues.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Testimony 1+3: Unclear. [Probably the victim contacted his brother Ahmet Kasgarli as Ahmet contacted the Turkish Embassy in Beijing about the victim's situation on the 27th of April 2017.]
Testimony 4: the anonymous source appears to have attended the trial.
Additional information
On the 27th of April 2017, the victim's brother Ahmet Kaşgarlı emailed the Turkish Embassy in Beijing about the victim's situation and they said they would look into this matter and get back to him. He also wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Turkish Grand National Assembly Human Rights Commission informed the victim's brother that the Minister of Foreign Affair would respond to this matter. On the 6th of May 2017, the victim's brother received a note from the Turkish Consulate that said the victim was arrested because he had financed the terrorist organizations. However, no documents and information regarding the victim's being taken to court nor his penalty were provided by the Turkish Consulate. There's no official information about his arrest.
Euronews report (Testimony 1): https://tr.euronews.com/2019/04/18/cin-deki-toplama-kamplarinda-turk-vatandaslari-da-mi-tutuluyor
RFA coverage (Testimony 3-4): https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/retrial-04152021160420.html
Testimony 2: his wife has also been detained.
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://twitter.com/UyghurJustice/status/1375424347830108163?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Turkish ID card: https://shahit.biz/supp/7065_2.jpg photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/7065_3.jpg
Entry created: 2020-01-17 Last updated: 2021-06-08 Latest status update: 2021-04-15 8976. Ainur Birlik
Chinese ID: 65????19????????E? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: --- When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party
Serikzhan Bilash, the leader of the Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights organization, who came to prominence in 2018 for the group's work on the Xinjiang repressions.
About the victim
Ainur Birlik, a Kazakhstan citizen.
Victim's location
She was at a camp in Tacheng City at one point, but the testifier doesn't state if she is still there.
When victim was detained
Not stated.
According to the testifier, she was held at the same camp (the one on Horse Racetrack Road) as Erbaqyt Otarbai, Orynbek Koksebek, Amanzhan Seiit, and others.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
The testifier doesn't state if she is still in detention, released but in China, or back in Kazakhstan.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Not stated.
Additional information ---
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsd38qHnWec
Entry created: 2020-06-17 Last updated: 2020-06-17 Latest status update: 2020-02-18 8977. Arman Duman
Chinese ID: 65????19????????O? (place of origin unclear)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: ---
Testifying party (* direct submission)
Testimony 1: Erbaqyt Otarbai, a truck driver and Kazakhstan citizen, who spent about 2 years in Xinjiang after returning there in 2017. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations. (detained together)
Testimony 2: Orynbek Koksebek, as reported by The Believer. (detained together)
Testimony 3*: Serikzhan Bilash, as reported by Gene A. Bunin.
About the victim
Arman Duman is originally from Xinjiang, but has since obtained Kazakhstan citizenship. He was already a Kazakhstan citizen and residing in Astana when he was detained.
Victim's location
Kazakhstan.
When victim was detained
It's not clear when he was initially detained. However, he would be released from the camp on Horse Racetrack Road in Tacheng City in mid-April 2018, together with Orynbek Koksebek and Amanzhan Seiit, and allowed to return to Kazakhstan.
According to Erbaqyt Otarbai, he was the class head (学习委员) for their class at the camp.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status
Released and back in Kazakhstan. How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Erbaqyt and Orynbek were both detained with Arman.
Serikzhan knew Arman following his return to Kazakhstan and was encouraging him to speak publicly about his experiences.
Additional information
Mentioned in The Believer: https://believermag.com/weather-reports-voices-from-xinjiang/
Supplementary materials
Testimony 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGrvnnp3SDc
Entry created: 2020-06-20 Last updated: 2020-06-20 Latest status update: 2020-02-18 11388. Baqyt Ramazan
Chinese ID: 65422119????????E? (Dorbiljin)
Basic info
Age: --- Gender: F Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: --- Status: --- When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: has problems Profession: ---
Testifying party
Akikat Kaliolla, a musician from Dorbiljin County, now a Kazakhstan citizen. (from same town/region)
About the victim
Baqyt Ramazan, a citizen of Kazakhstan (since December 2017) [presumably from Emin County, as they are the ones that sent her to camp]. She reportedly was subject to various forms of humiliation in the camp, including being made to sit in a tiger chair, scrub shoelaces and wash her hair with water which had been used to wash the bathroom. The torture she suffered has caused back injuries which were left untreated.
Victim's location
[Unclear if back in Kazakhstan or still in Xinjiang.]
When victim was detained
Detained and taken to the camp in Turghun village (吐尔滚村) (not clear when), where she would spent a year before being transferred to forced employment at a government office, where she'd have to regularly work overtime.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
Testimony mentions her being forced to make apologies in the camp for failure to pay her party membership fee of 12 yuan.
Victim's status
Unclear.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? Not stated
Additional information
---
Supplementary materials original testimony: https://twitter.com/Akikatkaliolla/status/1209783226522320896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw photo (right): https://shahit.biz/supp/11388_2.jpg
Entry created: 2020-08-14 Last updated: 2020-11-17 Latest status update: 2019-12-25 12940. Abdughopur Abdureshit (阿卜杜吾普尔·阿卜杜热西提)
Chinese ID: 654101198810152210 (Ghulja City)
Basic info
Age: 32 Gender: M Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Ili Status: unclear (hard) When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: tradesperson
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Hurshide Hesen, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (aunt)
Testimony 2: Abduletip Abdureshit, as reported by Radio Free Asia Uyghur. (brother)
Testimony 3: Juneydin, a resident of the United States. (cousin)
Testimony 4: Urumqi police records, as reported by Yael Grauer.
About the victim
Abdughopur Abdureshid is an Uyghur man who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1988 [day and month of birth unspecified]. He is a citizen of Afghanistan and a permanent resident of the PRC.
His mother is named Aynisahan Akbar and his father is named Abdureshid Hasan [surname inferred from relation to Hurshida Hasan].
According to unspecified relatives of Hurshida Hasan who reside in Turkey, Aynisahan Akbar passed away in Ghulja at some point in 2020 [circumstances unspecified].
Approximately two years after Abdughopur Abdureshid was born, his parents, Aynisahan Akbar and Abdureshid Hasan, fled the civil war in Afghanistan and moved [with Abdughopur Abdureshid] to Ghulja, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, XUAR.
According to Abduletip Abdureshid, his family [including Abdughopur Abdureshid] were required to renew their visas each year from 1990 to 1995 such that they could continue to live in China. After 1995, the family [including Abdughopur Abdureshid] was reportedly able to obtain permanent residency in China, but due to the danger of returning to Afghanistan, they were unable to return to Afghanistan to renew their passports and other paperwork.
According to Hurshida Hasan, who also fled Afghanistan with her [direct] family, moving to Ghulja in 1989, Abdughopur Abdureshid owned and operated a computer repair shop in Ghulja prior to his detention. Hurshida Hasan also specifies that Abdughopur Abdureshid's family (as well as her own family) were initially denied visas by the Chinese government after they fled Afghanistan, and were required to "register" [details unclear] every three months [presumably for some sort of temporary refugee permit]. Ultimately, the families went to a U.N. office in Beijing to resolve the situation by explaining to the U.N. that they were unable to return to Afghanistan [due to the civil war]. [They were presumably granted the year-long visas of which Abduletip Abdureshid speaks at some point after their visit to the U.N.]
Victim's location
[Presumably in Ili.]
When victim was detained
Hurshida Hasan says that contact with the victim's family became difficult after the July 2009 incident in Urumqi as a result of security measures implemented by Chinese authorities. When Hurshida Hasan called the victim's family in July 2009, she recalls that they were "really uneasy"; Hurshida Hasan and her family could sense that the victim's family were "a bit angry" [as a result of the phone call].
Hurshida Hasan called Abdureshid Hasan [father of Abdughopur Abdureshid] on 15 July 2009 and asked to talk, because she suspected that something was wrong. Abdureshid Hasan reportedly said to Hurshida Hasan: "Little sister, it would be best for you to please not call us anymore. We’re living very well."
Since the internment campaign began in the XUAR in 2017, Hurshida Hasan has not been able to speak with Abdureshid Hasan or any of the seven family members (in total) that remained in Ghulja [presumably including Abdughopur Abdureshid].
Hurshida Hasan learnt during a recent trip to visit relatives in Turkey that Abdughopur Abdureshid was arrested at some point in 2017 and sent to an internment camp. In Turkey, Hurshida Hasan met with a "young man" named Arapat Yadikar, who informed her that Abdughopur Abdureshid had been his classmate in Ghulja and that [Chinese authorities] had taken Abdughopur Abdureshid to an internment camp in 2017.
Abduletip Abdureshid heard about Abdughopur Abdureshid's disappearance from his aunt [presumably Hurshida Hasan]. He subsequently contacted the Chinese consulate in Istanbul and the Chinese embassy in Ankara via email in search of information pertaining to Abdoghopur Abdureshid's current status and whereabouts.
In July 2020, approximately two months after his emails to the Chinese consulate in Istanbul and the Chinese embassy in Ankara, Abduletip Abdureshid received a response from a representative of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, informing him that Abdughopur Abdureshid was detained for "violating Chinese law" and was in "good health." The response in question contained no information about which Chinese law Abdughopur Abdureshid had allegedly violated, what his sentence was, or where he was being held. Abduletip Abdureshid then sent another letter to the Chinese consulate in Istanbul seeking clarification on Abdughopur Abdureshid's detention, but so far, there has been no response.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
--- Victim's status
Abdughopur Abdureshid was reportedly taken to an internment camp at some point in 2017. His current status and whereabouts are unknown.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
Hurshida Hasan met with Arapat Yadikar on a trip to visit relatives in Turkey. Arapat Yadikar told Hurshida Hasan that he was a former classmate of Abdughopur Abdureshid and that Abdughopur Abdureshid had been taken to an internment camp in 2017.
Abduletip Abdureshid heard about Abdughopur Abdureshid's disappearance from his aunt [presumably Hurshida Hasan] at an unspecified point in time, and received confirmation from the Chinese consulate in Istanbul in July 2020 that Abdughopur Abdureshid had been detained for "violating Chinese law."
Additional information
The families of Abdughopur Abdureshid, and his aunt, Hurshida Hasan, had initially moved from Ghulja to Afghanistan in 1970 (before Abdoghopur Abdureshid was born); they all became citizens of Afghanistan soon after. They later decided to head back to their homeland in the XUAR when the war in Afghanistan began.
Hurshida Hasan and her direct family used their Afghan citizenship to flee the XUAR after the 1997 Ghulja incident, first settling in Central Asia and later relocating to the United States. The family of Abdughopur Abdureshid remained in Ghulja.
Abduletip Abdureshid has left messages with the Afghan Embassy in Turkey seeking assistance from the Afghan government in relation to Abdoghopur Abdureshid's case, but he has not yet received a response.
RFA coverage (Testimony 1-2): https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/afghan-10192020143338.html
Supplementary materials
Testimony 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNh93g60ARk Chinese ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/12940_1.jpg photo: https://shahit.biz/supp/12940_3.jpg
Entry created: 2020-11-11 Last updated: 2021-05-19 Latest status update: 2020-10-19 14640. Maden Gani
Chinese ID: 65????1968??????O? (---)
Basic info
Age: 52-53 Gender: M Ethnicity: Kazakh Likely current location: outside China Status: free When problems started: Apr. 2017 - June 2017 Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|nationalism, patriotism Health status: --- Profession: medicine
Testifying party
Maden Gani, a veterinarian and now Kazakhstan citizen. He is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent several months in a camp. (the victim)
About the victim
Maden Gani was born in 1968 in the Tarbaghatai district. He was educated in the Kazakh language. He started to work (as a vet) in 1992 till 2014. In January 2014, he and his family moved to Kazakhstan. From 2014 till 2017 together with his family lived with temporary documents (yktiyar hat) and in 2017 applied for Kazakh citizenship. In 2017, he was called back by his former Chinese workplace. On July, 24 2017, he crossed the border at Alashankou.
He received his citizenship in December 2017 while in Xinjiang. He was able to leave China in a status of foreign citizen only in October 2020.
Victim's location
Kazakhstan
When victim was detained
24.07.2017 arrival to Xinjiang to his former workplace. Were given many tasks, including watching other families and controlling his colleagues. Documents were confiscated on the first day of his arrival.
September 2018 detained. The first three days stayed in an underground prison for interrogation. Then was sent to the re-education camp.
February 2019 freed and was under house arrest for half a year.
Likely (or given) reason for detention suspected in praising and missing Kazakhstan in his poem Victim's status free
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status? testifies for himself
Additional information
After being freed in February 2019 and finishing his half-a-year house arrest, had problems with getting his passport back in October 2020.
Supplementary materials video testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZXAKq8F_uQ
Entry created: 2021-04-27 Last updated: 2021-05-17 Latest status update: 2021-04-01 15168. Zahide Omer
Chinese ID: 65280120150303??E? (Korla)
Basic info
Age: 6 Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Bayingolin Status: no news for over a year When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Omerjan Hemdul, as reported by The Diplomat. (father)
Testimony 2: Omerjan Hemdul, originally from Korla but now residing in Turkey. (father)
About the victim
Zahide Omer is one of the daughters of Omer and Meryem Faruh. She is a Turkish citizen, and has three siblings (two of whom reside outside of China).
Victim's location
[Presumably in Bayingolin, as that's where the family seems to be from originally.]
When victim was detained
In 2016, Omer was in Saudi Arabia. Meryem called him to say that Chinese police were demanding that she surrender the passports for her and the children.
Omer advised Meryem not to surrender the passports as he knew they could all be detained. He then arranged flights out of China for Meryem and the two elder daughters, who already had passports.
The two younger daughters (including the victim) stayed in Xinjiang with Omer's in-laws. In 2017, Omer's in-laws were placed in concentration camps.
It is unclear what happened to the victim.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status The victim's current status and whereabouts are unknown.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
All contact with the victim ceased in 2017.
Additional information
The Diplomat coverage (Testimony 1): https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/the-missing-uyghur-children/
Victims among relatives
Rozi Hemdul (5381), Memet Hemdul (5382), Horigul Barat (4933), Ablimit Ziyawudun (4934), Hawagul Hemdul (584), Hernisahan Semet (3405), Zeynigul Hemdul (3179), Muhammettahir Ablimit (4935), Zeripe Omer (15169)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://twitter.com/OmerFaruh8111/status/1401952540745506819?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Turkish ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/15168_1.jpg
Entry created: 2021-06-08 Last updated: 2021-06-08 Latest status update: 2021-06-07 15169. Zeripe Omer
Chinese ID: 65280120160525??E? (Korla)
Basic info
Age: 5 Gender: F Ethnicity: Uyghur Likely current location: Bayingolin Status: no news for over a year When problems started: --- Detention reason (suspected|official): ---|--- Health status: --- Profession: minor
Testifying party
Testimony 1: Omerjan Hemdul, as reported by The Diplomat. (father)
Testimony 2: Omerjan Hemdul, originally from Korla but now residing in Turkey. (father)
About the victim
Zarife Omer is one of the daughters of Omer and Meryem Faruh. She is a Turkish citizen, and has three siblings (two of whom reside outside of China).
Victim's location
[Presumably in Bayingolin, as that's where the family seems to be from originally.]
When victim was detained
In 2016, Omer was in Saudi Arabia. Meryem called him to say that Chinese police were demanding that she surrender the passports for her and the children.
Omer advised Meryem not to surrender the passports as he knew they could all be detained. He then arranged flights out of China for Meryem and the two elder daughters, who already had passports.
The two younger daughters (including the victim) stayed in Xinjiang with Omer's in-laws. In 2017, Omer's in-laws were placed in concentration camps.
It is unclear what happened to the victim.
Likely (or given) reason for detention
---
Victim's status The victim's currents status and whereabouts are unknown.
How did the testifier learn about the victim's status?
All contact with the victim ceased in 2017.
Additional information
The Diplomat coverage (Testimony 1): https://thediplomat.com/2021/04/the-missing-uyghur-children/
Victims among relatives
Rozi Hemdul (5381), Memet Hemdul (5382), Horigul Barat (4933), Ablimit Ziyawudun (4934), Hawagul Hemdul (584), Hernisahan Semet (3405), Zeynigul Hemdul (3179), Muhammettahir Ablimit (4935), Zahide Omer (15168)
Supplementary materials
Testimony 2: https://twitter.com/OmerFaruh8111/status/1401952540745506819?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Turkish ID: https://shahit.biz/supp/15169_2.jpg
Entry created: 2021-06-08 Last updated: 2021-06-08 Latest status update: 2021-06-07