Archive: Uyghurs share horrors of being torn from families
June 28, 2020The ongoing coronavirus crisis has
further highlighted the desperate situation in which minority Muslim groups –
predominantly Uyghurs – have been under intense pressure from China’s Communist Party
(CCP) since the spring of 2017, with laws being introduced banning children
from speaking their native language in school, men growing long beards and
women wearing veils.
Hundreds of religious sites,
namely mosques and Muslim graveyards, have also been razed to the ground since
Beijing’s representatives in Xinjiang introduced so-called anti-extremism bills
with CNN having examined satellite images of these sites before and after they
were destroyed.
Further unsettling accounts
have emerged from concentration camps where at least 1 million Uyghur, Kazaks
and Uzbeks have been held in high-security facilities where detainees are
denied the right to contact their families and freely practice their religion.
Many are understood to have been detained without having their
case heard in court or sentenced following alleged show trials to spend years
inside what China calls “re-education centres”.
Inside
the hundreds of camps in Xinjiang, detainees have reported having to renounce
Islam, show unwavering devotion to communism, while being monitored around the
clock under prison-like conditions.
Further
harrowing allegations, compiled by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think
tank, include acts of sexual violence against women with some “forced to
undergo abortions” or “have contraception implanted against their will”.
The
CFR think tank said in November that detainees had been targeted for a number
of reasons, including travelling to or having contact with people in twenty-six
countries – among them Turkey and Afghanistan.
Beijing denies allegations of torture and forced detention, with
Xinjiang’s Governor Shohrat Zakir last year calling the sites “the same as
boarding schools” and claimed “students” personal freedoms were guaranteed.
The
ongoing situation in Xinjiang has led numerous members of the estimated 1.8
million Uyghurs who live abroad to call for the immediate release of family
members being detained in the camps or who are among the 80,000 forced
labourers that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute believes to be held
against their will in factories across China.
Now
Uyghurs have said that in addition to the alleged ongoing crimes against their
people, that the coronavirus pandemic has again ignited fear for their family
members.
In
a series of statements, several Uyghurs have told of their families’ plight and
their concerns amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Jevlan
Shirmemet, son of Suriye Tursun
The last time
Jevlan Shirmemet spoke to his family was on January 11, 2018.
Now living in
Istanbul, Mr Shirmemet is continuing to demand answers from the CCP over the
whereabouts of his 56-year-old mother, Suriye Tursun, after she was detained
and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
He described Suriye
as “a grateful woman” with a love of cooking for her children and travelling.
In fact, it is a
visit to see Mr Shirmemet in Turkey that he believes the Chinese government
targeted and detained her.
He added: “Because
we are Uyghur, I studied in Turkey and my mum came to visit me at my
university.
“Because I study in
Turkey, all my family members were detained in concentration camps. Because my
mother came to visit me at my university, she was sentenced to jail. I cannot
think of any other reasons (for the detention).”
The last time Mr Shirmemet, 29, saw his mother was when she
waved him off at Urumqi Airport on October 13, 2016 – the last time he left
Xinjiang for Turkey.
In
the following years Mr Shirmemet’s family were rounded up ad detained in
concentration camps as part of what he describes as the CCP’s “Nazi policy”.
His
dad Xudayar, an environmental protection office official based in Korgas
(Huocheng) county, and his younger brother Erfan – a graduate of the then
Northwest University for Nationalities – had “graduated” from one of the
detention centres.
But
Suriye remains imprisoned.
He
described the last time he spoke to his family on January 11, 2018, as “normal,
like usual”. But, just two days later, Mr Shirmemet started to notice that his
family had started to delete him from WeChat.
After
that, Mr Shirmemet said he did not dare contact his family out of fear it could
“bring them more trouble”.
It
wasn’t until December 2019 that Mr Shirmemet learned that his family had been
detained in concentration camps.
He
continued: “It was told to me that all my family members were detained in concentration
camps in early 2018. My mum was sentenced to five years in jail and my father,
Xudayar, and younger brother, Erfan, ‘had graduated’ from a Chinese inhumane
‘Nazi camp’ in December 2019.”
But
the situation inside the camps has become even more concerning with the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic.
China
has insisted that cases have remained under control since March, with the
Government’s official statistics claiming that some 4,600 people have died and
nearly 83,000 cases have been recorded.
But the figures have been disputed with US President Donald
Trump tweeting last month: “It is far higher than that and far higher than the
US, not even close.”
With
no cure yet available for the disease, Mr Shirmemet said he fears for the
health of people inside the camps and what actions the CCP might take once it
is brought under control.
He
said: “I’m very concerned, as the conditions of prisons in ‘Xinjiang’ are very
poor. My mum’s health was not good and we know that China lied to the world
about the coronavirus, just as they are lying about the concentration camps.
So, yes, I am very worried.
“I
fear the Chinese government will become more aggressive against the Uyghur
people after the coronavirus is under control. They still do that (maintain
aggression against Uyghurs), they never stopped doing it.”
Mr
Shirmemet is continuing to fight for his mother’s release and has been in
contact with the European Human Rights Committee, Turkey’s National Council,
the International Uyghur Human Rights Project and Amnesty International.
Shayida
Ali, daughter of Elijian Mamut
Uyghur businessman
Elijan Mamut, aged in his 40s, disappeared in May, 2017, and his family has not
heard from him for three years.
For three years,
Shayida Ali has had no knowledge where her father is and what crime he was
accused of.
Working in IT in
Boston, Ms Ali has only recently started speaking out about the pain of being
cut off from her father out of fear of retaliation from the CCP.
Her fears are
shared by her immediate family in Xinjiang. Ms Ali’s mum deleted her from
WeChat – a Chinese messaging app – and the only messages that filter through
are simple greetings, typically sent via cousins or her friends.
“That’s all I have
for now,” Ms Ali said.
She added:
“Whenever I ask my friends or my cousins ‘where is my father?’ they reply ‘your
father is fine’. That’s it, they never tell me anything else.
“When I hear this I
think, is it a good sign? Should I imagine it positively? But, one thing
bothers me. If my father is free, he is not the type of person who would stop
talking to me.
“He would never do that, unless he is in some kind of dangerous
place.”
As
well as her father, dozens of other men in her family have been taken away by
the Chinese authorities and held against their will.
By
Ms Ali’s estimate, 80 percent of the men on her mother’s side of the family
have been rounded up and detained in concentration camps.
Beyond
this, Ms Ali could not say whether they had been moved to work as forced
labourers or if they were still in camps.
Years
of relative silence and not knowing where her father is has given Ms Ali time
to reflect on memories of the two that she said give her comfort.
“He
gives me a lot of love so I can stay strong at this time. Whenever I had a hard
decision in my life, he wouldn’t say ‘just do that’ like other parents,” she
said.
Ms
Ali added: “He is the person who would set aside his work and talk to me where
he would set out the pros and cons. It was like he was talking to a friend even
though I was a thirteen-year-old girl. I will never forget that.
“Those
conversations are special to me. And it shows what a kind man he is and how it
let me be a good person and gave me a better life.”
The 24-year-old kept a close bond with her father after she
moved to the US and they spoke regularly until, suddenly, contact with him was
severed in May 2017.
Ms
Ali continued: “As we talked all the time I can’t even remember what we spoke
about, because I didn’t know it was going to be the last time and that he was
going to suffer.”
But,
after years of silence, Ms Ali was confronted by a new wave of hopelessness
over her father’s situation, after the coronavirus first started its rapid spread
earlier this year.
She
added: “At the beginning of this year I mentally broke down, just like I did
three years ago when I lost contact with him. Over these three years, I was
hoping maybe he would be released, or maybe other family members would get into
contact.
“Then,
just after the coronavirus outbreak started, there were a lot of videos about
life inside the camps and how that situation… and when I saw that, I mentally
broke down again.
“After
we get control of this virus, we should put more pressure on China so that the
concentration camps will finally be closed and that people will finally be
released.
“Right
now, the Chinese Government is embarrassed in front of the international
community and I hope that with the international community asking about what is
happening to these innocent people it will shame them into closing those
camps.”
Samira
Imin, daughter of Iminjan Seydin
Prominent Uyghur
historian and publisher Iminjan Seydin was convicted of “inciting extremism”
and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in February 2019, in what Amnesty
International called a “secret and grossly unfair trial”.
His daughter Samira
Imin did not learn about the sentencing until the tail end of that year and was
not provided with any evidence to justify the court’s decision.
Before then, Ms
Imin had not heard from her father and did not know his whereabouts since May,
2017, when they lost contact.
The last time they
spoke was on Mr Seydin’s birthday when he sent Ms Imin a photo of himself
celebrating his birthday, and the final message he sent the following month was
a photo of himself exercising outside in a rural area near the town of Hotan.
In the years prior
to his arrest, Mr Seydin published some 350 books on a wide range of topics,
including child education, psychology and science to name a few.
Ms Imin added that
her dad had dedicated himself to cultural exchange and dialogue and had
instilled a hunger to learn and think more broadly about the world, all without
heaping more pressure on her while she studied at school.
She continued: “In China, the third year of high school is quite
intense. I would stay until 9.30pm every night to study at school - it’s really
intense. And my dad waited for me outside my school for a whole year, and you
know it is very cold in winter – and although he had a car it was still a
touching moment for me because not many parents did so.
“I
got mentally stressed because of all the work and one day I said to him ‘I’m
not sure I can do this. It’s hard’. But, unlike other parents, he said: ‘Just do
your best and don’t worry too much about the rest, so he never pressured me in
any way when it came to my life or education. He has always been this example
of what a kind, decent and well-educated person can bring to his family and his
community.
“He
always communicated that I should think more broadly in order to be a
well-rounded person – instead of only focusing on what’s in the textbooks.
“We
used to have these father-daughter talks often, and those conversations and his
wisdom of life helped me shape my ways, of seeing my own life and helped me
overcome the hardships in my life. Specifically, coming to a foreign land like
America it can be challenging – at least in the first two years – and he was
very supportive of me. He’s my strength.”
Ms Imin’s hours staying back at school paid off, however, and
she is now continuing her studies at Harvard Medical School where seeing
patients struggling with coronavirus has raised her concerns about her father’s
health inside the camps.
The
CCP has claimed to have rapidly brought the coronavirus under control since the outbreak first began in Wuhan in December, last year.
But
experts have questioned the official infection rates and death toll, with the
highly-infectious disease being documented in numerous countries as having
spread into secure prisons.
Ms
Imin added: “Through my work, I do see people suffering and I see people, all
from different backgrounds and they are all affected by this deadly virus.
“Seeing
them being taken to the hospital and where some of them may survive and some of
them may not, it adds another layer to my concern for my dad and for my people.
“I
think about it especially when I see elderly patients, it directly reminds me
of my dad. If you have underlying conditions you are more likely to suffer and
given that my dad has high blood pressure it concerns me.”
But it is the end of the pandemic that worries Ms Imin the most.
Uncertainty over how the Chinese government will respond has made her feel
uneasy about the future of her family and the Uyghur people.
Despite
experiencing racism and discrimination in China before the crackdown, Ms Imin
admitted she did not believe the situation in Xinjiang would become as
desperate as it is now – and it is unknown how the CCP will respond once the
pandemic finally comes to an end.
The
27-year-old said: “I didn’t think things would become this extreme.
“Hopefully
they can realise they committed a humanitarian crime and stop what they are
doing, but I’m not too hopeful about how they would change. There is a huge
concern that they might push harder and crackdown more on the Uyghurs and
things can become unimaginable.
“There
are people in camps, they are already in prison and even for those living
outside the camps – they are living in a virtual prison. The mental stress that
they experience, it worries me a lot.”
In
the days following the interview, China Daily – an English language paper owned
by the CCP – shared a video of Mr Seydin some three years after his
disappearance where he spoke directly to his daughter.
In
what appeared to be a scripted speech, Mr Seydin – who had visibly lost weight
and received a buzz cut – spoke of “anti-Chinese forces who deceived his
daughter”.
The
55-year-old added he had been “healthy and free” and that any reports he had
been detained were “not true”.
Speaking directly to Ms Imin, Mr Seydin said: “Do not believe
them (anti-Chinese forces) or do anything they ask you to do. If not for the
Communist Party of China and government we would not be living a happy life
like now.
“I
would not have worked at the Institute and you would not have had the chance to
study abroad. All this could not have been possible without the Party.”
Following
the release of the video, Ms Imin confirmed she was able to speak with her
father but raised concerns she is worried her dad was forced into making the
statements.
Luke
de Pulford, director at Arise, an anti-slavery NGO, expressed concerns that
little had been made by Beijing to stop the coronavirus from entering and
spreading inside camps where Uyghur were being held.
He
said: “Many of us have been worried that no efforts are being made to protect
the Uyghurs in the camps from getting the virus. Our screens are full of
state-sponsored images from China showing people clad in protective gear.
This article was first published on The Daily Express website under the headline ’China shame: Beijing’s ‘Nazi camps’ exposed as families torn apart amid coronavirus fears’ on May 15
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