{"id":229012,"date":"2021-03-02T18:36:37","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T02:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=229012"},"modified":"2022-09-09T18:20:35","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T01:20:35","slug":"new-details-emerge-from-xinjiang-camps-amid-government-efforts-to-discredit-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2021\/03\/new-details-emerge-from-xinjiang-camps-amid-government-efforts-to-discredit-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"New Details Emerge from Xinjiang Camps Amid Government Efforts to Discredit Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a campaign of mass internment of Uyghurs<\/a> in northwest China seemingly begins to transition into a new stage involving forced labor and population transfers, details of the detainees’ experiences\u00a0continue to emerge. In early February, a BBC investigation uncovered evidence of systematic rape<\/a> in the camps, \u201cthe-situation-that-must-not-be-mentioned\u201d in the words of Weibo users trying to avoid censors\u2019 gazes<\/a>. At The New Yorker, a visual essay written by Ben Mauk, with artwork by Matt Huynh, drew on extensive interviews to provide deeply personal testimony on life in Xinjiang during the campaign, both inside and outside of the camps<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

Sholpan Amirken, a hairdresser from northern Xinjiang who married into a prominent religious family, told me that after several of her husband\u2019s relatives were detained in 2017, a male Han cadre came to stay at her house. He advised Amirken and her husband, both of whom are Kazakh, to dispose of books written in Arabic, so she burned them. He also ordered her to take down wall ornaments with Kazakh phrases\u2014\u201cMay Allah Bless You,\u201d \u201cMay the Roof of Your House Be High\u201d\u2014along with embroideries of mosques. The cadre visited for days or weeks at a time, she said, always bringing luggage and sleeping in the main house. Amirken was nervous around the cadre, who came even when her husband, a long-haul truck driver, like Otarbai, was away. She began to sleep in a guest house. \u201cWe considered him a spy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Before she spoke, Aynur stood by herself under a large flagpole while the Chinese flag was raised. Then she explained that, because she was unable to control her husband, he had become involved with terrorists, and that this was why he was living in the camp a few miles down the road, with around five thousand other detainees. When Aynur finished, others rose to give speeches praising the Party. Although she had given brief confessions at previous ceremonies, she\u2019d never been forced to call her husband a terrorist. Afterward, relatives in her village started avoiding her. Former colleagues from her old school stopped saying hello when they saw her on the street. \u201cI felt like a criminal in front of all those people,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was not a good feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u2026] Firsthand descriptions of criminal trials in Xinjiang are rare. Amirken, the Kazakh hairdresser who married into a prominent religious family, told me that she attended the trial of her brother-in-law, Nurlan Pioner, an imam in the Altai Mountains near Mongolia. For years, Pioner had avoided trouble with authorities. He received training and a certificate from the state-run madrasa in \u00dcr\u00fcmqi and worked closely with Party officials, who approved his Friday-night sermons and his scholarly work translating religious books from Arabic into Kazakh. Nevertheless, Pioner was detained in June, 2017, and put on trial a year later. His family received a twenty-three-page prewritten judgment of his case. When the proceedings began, two guards with rifles carried Pioner into the courtroom in a chair. The accused was wearing a blue prison uniform that was soiled with urine. He appeared malnourished and was unable to walk; he spoke incoherently. The judge read the prewritten verdict. It said that Pioner was arrested for \u201cgathering a crowd to instigate social disorder; taking advantage of extremism to hold back law enforcement; [and] illegally obtaining materials which propagate [an] extremist ideology.\u201d He was sentenced to seventeen years in prison. According to researchers, Pioner\u2019s case reflected the criminalization of religious practice in Xinjiang. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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This multimedia project is based on years of reporting and research on Xinjiang, particularly meeting with dozens of ex-detainees and other survivors of Xinjiang\u2019s police state. pic.twitter.com\/FVBONZ1If3<\/a><\/p>\n

— Ben Mauk (@benmauk) February 26, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n