The picture shows a high-security building photographed in the Hotan area of Xinjiang on May 31, 2019. It is believed to be a CCP concentration camp in which Uyghurs are detained. (Image source: GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)
[Look at China July 11, 2021](Look at the compilation by Chinese reporter Cheng Rong) Geoffrey Cain, a journalist and writer specializing in reporting on Asian affairs, interviewed hundreds of victims and challenged the CCP toXinjiangDemon abuse by Uyghur Muslims has been exposed. Based on this, Kane wrote “Full police state“(The Perfect Police State), will be published by “Public Affairs” on July 22.
Returned university students were arbitrarily detained
According to an excerpt from the “Daily Mail” victim story, the description in the book reads this: “The day Maysem was taken away for re-education, she didn’t even have a chance to get a change of clothes. A phone message ordered her to report to the’street management’ center in Kashgar, like all Uyghur Muslim students in the Xinjiang region of northwestern China.”
A local government official told her that because she had studied abroad, she needed to sign up for a one-month political course. This is mandatory and will start immediately.
When she left the building, she recognized a woman in her apartment complex, Ms. Ger, who was designated as a “community supervisor.” Ms. Ge pulled her aside and said, “This is not my job. Big changes are coming.” Her voice was polite, but threatening. Messem was then tied to a car.
This young Chinese student’s enthusiasm for reading has always worried her parents, and she knows that the “big change” has already begun. It was September 2016. A week ago, the new Xinjiang Governor Chen Quanguo was appointed. According to rumors, he intends to suppress underground dissidents who are campaigning for political independence and greater freedom for Muslims. The protesters were accused of being terrorists.
Messem is a devout Muslim, but her social science research, which is the university she attended in Turkey, is what she is most interested in. When she was ordered to enter the back of a car and taken to the re-education center, her main concern was that this mandatory one-month course would threaten her return to Turkey and the beginning of the final year of postgraduate education.
After only an hour, she realized that the danger was far more than that. The car stopped at a school outside the old city wall, but soldiers in camouflage uniforms stood guard at the gate of this school. Inside, the black-clothed policeman was holding an assault rifle and a stabbed electric shock.
Messem was escorted from the car to a black iron door, where she was scanned by a metal detector. A sign hung above the entrance: “It is the responsibility of every citizen to defend our country.”
The door slammed shut behind her. There is a sign on one of the doors: “I am a citizen. I love my country. I will make my country great.”
She was taken into a hall where there was a receptionist and cameras in every corner of the room. Messem began to explain that she had done nothing wrong and asked her why she was brought here. The receptionist scolded, “Don’t ask questions. You sit and wait!”
Ten minutes later, dozens of well-dressed elderly men and women swarmed in under the escort of the guards. An elderly woman wearing conspicuous jewelry shouted: “What does this mean? Do you know who I am? My husband works for the deputy governor!”
About ten policemen in black SWAT uniforms stood at the front of the room. One of them announced that the indoctrination course will last six hours a day. Then he said: “We have a problem. This place is getting dirty. We must clean up. Who wants to be a volunteer?”
He pulled Messem out of the crowd, “You look like the youngest person here! You can clean the windows.”
When she protested that she was a student and not a cleaner, he asked her, “Do you have any important relatives?” Then he called another policeman and said, “Take her to the detention center.”
After a short car trip, she was pushed into another iron door and walked through a corridor decorated with murals of Muslim girls cowering in front of the teacher wearing the veil. On the opposite wall are happy Han women, leading a group of smiling children.
Messem was taken into a courtyard surrounded by walls. In the middle stands a medieval torture instrument built of wood, iron and rubber bands. She shivered with fright and realized that this was a notorious “tiger stool”.
It was at noon. The boiling sun in August was high in the sky. When she began to protest, ten guards surrounded her: “This is a mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I did nothing wrong. I come from a good family.”
One of the guards said, “Let’s show this bitch who is the boss.” The two men pressed her to the ground and ripped off her shoes. “Sluts!” the guards shouted, “Bitch! Whores!”
The guards picked Messem up and dragged her to the chair. This forced her back to stand upright, and her legs stretched along the bench at a painfully raised angle. She was handcuffed on her forearms and calves. She told Kane: “This kind of discomfort is extreme. We have all heard of tiger stools. That’s how they kill chickens and wary monkeys, and torture you by twisting your body.”
The other prisoners gathered around to watch. She said: “They are like patients who have recovered from a head trauma in a car accident, losing their ego. They can’t seem to think, can’t ask questions, can’t express emotion or talk. They just stare at me hollowly, and then Was driven back to the building.”
The guards left Messem in the sun until her skin was red and hot. When they finally untied the strap, they ordered her to stand up. One person said: “You have to raise your arms and stand for a few more hours.”
He stood behind her with a baton. The guard told her: “You know what happens if you move.” She kept asking herself: “Why am I here?”
On July 1, 2021, the Chinese Communist Party’s centennial celebration, a large-scale protest in support of Xinjiang Uyghurs broke out in front of the Chinese Communist Party’s embassy in London. (Image source: Seeing Chinese Photography and Chengrong/Looking at China)
Women who did not enter the concentration camp were arbitrarily raped
Even for those who are not locked in the camp, daily life there is hellish. If you are a woman, you may wake up next to a stranger designated by the government every morning to replace your partner who has “missed” to the camp. The Chinese authorities insist that when this happens, men will not take advantage of women.
Every morning before going to work, this ideological reformer will teach your family the virtues of the country, namely loyalty, purity of mind, and harmonious relationship with the Communist Party.
He will check your progress by asking questions to make sure that you are not “infected” by the government’s so-called “ideological virus” and “three evils” (terrorism, separatism, and extremism). After the morning instillation, you may hear a knock on the door. The local community supervisor is appointed by the state and is responsible for monitoring a block of ten households. It will check your house for “violations”, such as having more than three children or possessing religious books. She might say, “Neighbors reported you.”
Every day at noon, if you are a woman, you must take the birth control pill prescribed by the government. However, you are still one of the lucky ones: the government often summons female colleagues to the local clinic for mandatory sterilization. The government says it wants to reduce the fertility rate of ethnic minorities, claiming that this will lead to economic prosperity.
In the evening, at home, your children tell you about the patriotism and harmonious party virtues they learned in school that day. You should not argue about their courses. The teacher told the students to report the parents who disagree with them.
After dinner and watching the evening news, you and the government ideological reformer sleep in the same bed in front of the government camera installed in the living room. He has the right to do whatever he wants in bed because he is sent by the state. If you resist his provocation, he will fabricate an accusation, report you, and you will be sent to a concentration camp.
Ubiquitous surveillance system
If you drive to a gas station or grocery store to buy food and eat, you must scan your ID at the entrance and in front of armed guards everywhere. The display next to the scanner will flash the words “Trustworthy”, which means that the government has declared that you are a good citizen and you will be allowed to enter.
People who received the “untrustworthy” notification were denied entry and may face further problems after a quick check of the records. Maybe the facial recognition camera caught him praying in the mosque. Or the camera records that he bought six packs of beer, and the artificial intelligence (AI) system suspects that he has alcohol problems. He may never know the reason. But everyone knows that any episode will cause the country to lower your credibility ranking.
The police approached and questioned him. They double-checked his identity on their smartphones with an app called “Integrated Joint Operations Platform”, which is composed of millions of cameras, court records, and massive amounts of data about each citizen collected by the government using millions of cameras, court records, and citizen spies. , All these data are processed by artificial intelligence.
Under the “predictive policing program,” artificial intelligence determined that he would commit a crime in the future and suggested sending him to a camp. The police took him away. After a period of re-education, he may come back at some point, or he may never see him again.
If this happens to someone in line next to you or at work, it’s best not to pay attention. Others may report you, hoping to get rewards from the government or a stronger trust ranking.
Since 2001, China has been launching its own “war on terrorism,” using extremism as an excuse to persecute Uyghur Muslims. In the past 20 years, this has been escalated into a plan to eliminate all their identities, culture and history, and to forcibly assimilate millions of people.
An official said in January 2018: “You cannot pull out all the weeds in the crops hidden in the fields one by one. You need to spray pesticides to kill them. Re-education of these people is like The crops are sprayed with pesticides.”
Red skirts are not enough to “ward off evil spirits”
As a young woman attending university in Beijing, Messem was never accepted as a completely Chinese by her professors. She has fair skin and is a Uyghur ethnicity, so she is a foreigner. Despite this, she achieved high scores and even obtained a permit to study for a master’s degree abroad, namely in Ankara, Turkey.
There, she wore an Islamic veil, but when she announced that she would continue to wear traditional Muslim clothing after returning home in 2014, her parents were shocked.
Instead, they urged her to wear bright reds and pinks, which are considered feminine and symbolize “good communist values.” They also hope that she can smile at the police. Smiles and bright red clothes are the surest way to win acceptance.
But the red skirt is not enough. When the family lived in a holiday house in the country, a local party and government official knocked on the door. He said that he received a report from a neighbor that the interior courtyard wall of their house was painted light blue.
Blue is a symbol of the Uyghur independence movement. Messem’s family does not even have a Uyghur flag, which is irrelevant. The yard had to be repainted in red, which is a reliable color.
A few weeks later, Messem’s mother opened the door to greet a group of police officers. They explained that her daughter was taken to receive re-education, “to clear the ideological virus from her mind.”
Her mother immediately began calling friends and contacts, pleading for Messem to be released, or at least to transfer her to a center where she would receive more lenient treatment. Finally, she talked with an assistant to the city’s mayor’s assistant. She pointed out: “My daughter has not been charged with any crime.”
The official disagreed. He asked: “Why is your daughter special? We have to take care of the 5,000 women in the center. The order comes from the top, not from our office. This is beyond our control.”
The prison experience of college students
Messem shares a cell with about 20 women, which is monitored by two cameras. The cell was about the same size as the living room, so the women stood almost side by side. Most of them stared blankly at the space, silent.
Messem said: “I don’t talk to them, and they don’t talk to me. No one believes anyone. The police appointed a cell boss. Her job is to manage the cell and monitor the prisoners. If they violate any rules, For example, if you fight with other inmates or don’t study publicity seriously, tell the guards.”
On the first night, Messem could not sleep. There is a toilet next to her bed, which the female prisoners use all night. The stench is so foul.
At 6 o’clock in the morning, the alarm went off. The fluorescent lights were on, and the female prisoners got up from the bed one after another. After taking a shower, they started aerobics and stretching exercises, while a female voice read instructions and propaganda through a loudspeaker.
“Now stretch to the right! Stretch to the left! Stretch to the left! Keep it! Follow me! Love our President Xi Jinping! Love the Communist Party! Let us be liberated from the virus of thought! We must all be good patriots!”
Then, the prisoners were ordered to stand behind a row, bend their knees, and prepare to sprint. A female guard shouted: “Start!” Within a minute, the prisoners sprinted through the yard until they reached their prize: moldy slices of bread on a plate on the ground. People who run too slowly won’t get breakfast.
These days are all indoctrination courses. Once, the teacher put two water bottles on the table. One is empty and one is full. “I said that a full water bottle is filled with water. I also think that an empty bottle is filled with water. What do you think?” A student raised his hand and stood up: “Both water bottles are full!” This is “correct” “s answer.
In another test, the detainee sat down at two tables. On the table on the left are scattered models of houses and yards. On the table on the right are a miniature AK-47 assault rifle and a grenade.
Messem received no instructions. The teachers just watched what she did. She found that the “correct” response was to rearrange the model houses, trees and shrubs into a lifelike home layout.
But if she touched the toy weapon, she failed the test. The weird logic is that only people with terrorist tendencies will feel comfortable handling guns and grenades, even models.
The punishment for failure is to isolate her for one day or more, and then repeat the test until her thoughts are “coordinated.”
The prison guard told Messem that if her “infected thoughts” were not cured, she would be sentenced to forced labor-this is the government’s solution to the shortage of factory workers across the country.
According to a report by the Australian Institute of Strategic Policy, between 2017 and 2019, more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred out of Xinjiang and entered into labor programs benefiting at least 83 Western companies, including Amazon, Adidas, and Calvin-Ke. Ryan (Calvin Klein), Gap (Gap) and Tommy Hilfiger (Tommy Hilfiger).
University professors criticized
Messem’s mother continued to fight for her daughter’s release, but when Messem saw a promotional video with a face she knew, a breakthrough occurred. One of her mentors when she was in college in Beijing was handcuffed.
His name is Ilham Tohti, and when Messem was his student seven years ago, he was a well-known economist and respected Uyghur intellectual. Since then, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and accused of infecting the minds of young people. One by one, the students in the video began to stand up and condemn him.
A student said: “Professor Tohti is a terrorist who has penetrated our minds. Now I am in the re-education center, and the party is teaching me to clear the Tohti virus in my head.”
Another student declared: “The three viruses of terrorism, extremism and separatism once existed in my body. Thanks to Professor Tohti, this virus is spreading. But the party has cured me. The party has put me on the right track. The road.” They shouted: “Love the party! Love the country! Down with the villain Tohti!”
“Repentance” against one’s heart
Messem woke up like a dream and finally grasped the CCP’s expectations of her. She began to write statements of remorse and confession in her notebook against her will: “I reflected on the teachings of the party. I was wrong. The party is great. The country is great. It’s great. The party is my father and mother, and the party has corrected me.” Three days later, she was released. Now she can take advantage of her re-education to convince officials that her mind has been purified, so she can continue to study in Turkey.
After a few weeks of filling out forms, she submitted endless documents to bureaucrats: “My birth certificate, housing registration, documents proving that I went from elementary school to university, and even the death certificates of my grandmother and grandfather.”
Because she did not use the previous ticket, she was not allowed to fly. The officials did not care that she missed the flight because she was held in a detention center. In the end, she was allowed to board a bus for a four-day journey across the border into India. From there, she flew to Turkey.
In the next few weeks, Messem exchanged messages with her parents to assure them that she is safe and studying hard. Her mother sent back some news clips via WeChat approved by the state. They are very careful to include appropriate patriotic slogans in their messages, promising that they love the party and Chairman Xi.
One day, the tone of her mother’s text message changed. Messem immediately guessed that it was now written by a Chinese Communist Party official. She begged to know what happened. These messages ceased. Messem is now convinced that her parents are in the detention center-she fears that she will never see them again.
Kane: Or second only to the Holocaust
Xinjiang is a region in northwestern China. Its nearest borders are Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan.
The majority of the population in the region is Uyghur (less than 1% of China’s 1.4 billion population). Since 2017, an estimated 1.1 million Uyghurs (one in ten) have been accused by the government of harboring “ideological viruses” and “Terrorist thoughts” and were taken to hundreds of concentration camps. Once there, they were sentenced from months of detention to imprisonment of seven years or more without trial.
Many concentration camps were converted from middle schools and other buildings and turned into detention centers for torture, brainwashing, and indoctrination.
This is the largest minority detention since the Holocaust. Since the Chinese government has tried to suppress all reports about the situation, little is known about it. But in the three years ending September 2020, Kane interviewed 168 Uyghur refugees, skilled workers, government officials, researchers, scholars, activists, and a former Chinese spy who was about to defect. Some people asked Kane to use a pseudonym when publishing their interviews.
Their stories are consistent in the small details such as dates, locations, addresses, and names. Most of these details can be confirmed from satellite images, leaked Chinese national documents, annual reports published online by Chinese companies, and Kane’s own observations and travels in Xinjiang.
Source: Look at China
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