We all know about the notorious concentration camps in Germany and the United States of America, but China is in fact the mastermind of concealing the camps from the world. The art of disguise is evident: the construction has started roughly around 2014, and it was well evident in 2017. Hundreds of individuals including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kirghiz had been detained without knowing where they were. After Secretary Chen Quanguo (current secretary of the region) came to China in August 2016, he recalled all of the passports and started to detain Uyghurs in so called “re-education centers”. Unfortunately, these re-education centers are nothing but pure propaganda to eradicate the Uyghur’s identity by renouncing their religion and torturing them. The camps are forcefully teaching Uyghurs chauvinism towards to the Communist Party. Hundreds of people died in a short time in the camps. Last year, few detainees gave testimonies about life in camps, and we confirmed the hostility of the camps. So the question is: what happens in these “re-education camps?”

The Concealed Truth

Over 2 million Uyghurs were incarcerated in the concentration camps and monitored everywhere with no freedom. These camps appear to look the same as penitentiaries: there are barbed wires, surveillance cameras, heavily guarded lookout posts, and watchtowers: security is ubiquitous throughout the region, so there is no way to escape these camps. The interior structure of the camp consists of Chinese propaganda slogans that surround the walls, and they seek to promote obedience to the Communist party. The rooms are similar to the rooms in prisons, and many are crowded within one small room with lack of sanitation. In the camps, they have to study the Chinese language, Chinese laws, and all of the ways the Chinese government is good to its people. The Uyghurs were forced to abjure to the belief that there is One God, and many Uyghurs were aspersed relentlessly for their uncommitted crimes. They made it illegal to have Muslim names like Mohammad and Ayesha, and their names must be changed. If there is suspicion over one person, they will arrest an individual’s entire family. Saying a word like “Alhamdulilah” (All praise be to God), fasting, and praying are also forbidden, and Uyghurs have been sentenced to death for trying to practice their religion. Inmates are forced to eat pork. The Chinese government is working arduously to proselytize the Muslims. Apart from this, they have minimal contact with their family members: children, if lucky, communicated with their parents once a month through a phone. These children were facing serious mental health issues, and most tried to commit suicide. They were forced to eat pork, wear traditional Chinese clothes, and salute to the Communist flag. The language of the Uyghurs have been banned from the official use and education: all of the books in the Uyghur language were incinerated. Out of the 24,000 mosques across East Turkistan, over 20,000 of them have been demolished. The remaining mosques are usually tourist centers with cameras everywhere, and Uyghurs do not have access to the mosques because the Communist regime is promoting nihilism and patriotism the Chinese Communist Party. Nevertheless, the crescent moon on top of the mosque is replaced with the communist flag.

The Obliterated Uyghur Identity

Over 60,000 religious scholars and clerics have been thrown into prisons under the pretext of “combating extremism.” Under so called “Family Planning Policies”, China is murdering thousands of babies that are still in their mothers’ wombs, even at 9 months. The Chinese government is bringing thousands of Chinese men to live in the home of Muslim families and force the Muslim women to marry atheists, which is strictly forbidden in Islam. Over 200,000 children, including infants have also been sent to youth concentration camps. The Chinese have placed facial recognition security cameras on every street corner in East Turkistan; furthermore, they collected the DNA samples, retina scans, and voice prints of millions of Uyghurs. Chinese officials are using the data to harvest organs from the Uyghurs to be used by wealthy Chinese and officials. Tens of thousands of bodies of the youth who disappeared are being discovered, and their organs have been removed to be used by the Chinese. The Uyghur’s passports have been revoked, the internet and telecommunications with the outside world have been cut. All of the Uyghur nations lands, homes, businesses, and personal properties have been seized and given to Chinese settlers (colonists), forcing Uyghurs into poverty.

Stories from Survivors

Warning. This section of the article contains graphic, gruesome details. Discretion is strongly advised.

Rukiya Perhat

Many Uyghurs describe their horrific experiences in the internment camps. Rukiya Perhat also experienced torture with the Chinese occupation. She is a dedicated Muslim who taught in Urumqi, until she got arrested. She was locked in an underground prison for 3 days without any food or water. During interrogations, the police would intimidate Uyghurs and bring prison dogs to bite the children, and she witnessed the death of 3 boys and 2 girls. They tortured people abrasively and interrogated Uyghurs at 2-3 AM. The methods they used were electrocuting their bodies, beating them up with sticks, burning cigarettes on the body, nailing their palms on the table, and extracting the fingernails by force. Many of the inmates were emaciated due to malnutrition. Rukiya’s most unforgettable experience was when she was locked up in a room with 5 people and 3 dogs, and she got bitten ferociously. She also experienced another unforgettable, perplexed experience: the police told her to go to a room, and she saw a 35 year old woman without half of her chest. The police threatened her that this will be her same fate. They exacerbated torture by putting innocent Uyghurs in water prison cells. Rukiya was in a water cells for 6 months, where she was in water for for more than 4.5-6 hours per day.

Omar Bekali

Omir Bekali, an ethnic Kazakh, stated the brutal conditions that occurred. He was arrested after he returned from a business trip, and he was placed in a prison for 6 months. He was unfairly charged for “terrorism” and sent to a concentration camp.

Gulbahar Jelil

Gulbahar Jelil, a businesswoman from Kazakistan, spoke about her horrendous accounts about the persecutions the Muslims had to face. While Jelil was trading goods, she was detained for “terrorism.” They replaced her Kazakistani passport with a Chinese one, and they forced her to testify her “crimes.” When she was in the concentration camps, she described the unsanitary, crowded conditions. There were 30 women in each cell (7 meters long, 2 meters wide), and there was no room to freely move. They could only shower one time per week. She stated the women had to divide their comb and soap into 30 pieces. Their starvation diet consisted of water and steamed buns, which was approximately 600 calories daily. Due to the lack of nutrition, many women fainted, starved, and had mental breakdowns due to the callous circumstances. Jelil accounted a moment when the women would scream, hit their heads on the wall, and smear feces in order to show retaliation against the occupation. These women, unfortunately, disappeared out of sight.

The brutality of the Chinese government was provided by describing the repeated tortures, discrimination, unsanitary conditions, and the unreasonable disappearances in the concentration camps: the regime’s reasoning is all because of their identity to their culture and faith. The world may not know all of the victim’s names; nonetheless, it is our time to recognize China’s corrupted occupation towards the innocents from East Turkistan. China fails to recognize human rights and autonomy: there is a tenuous link between Islam, Turkistan, and terrorism. It is time to make East Turkistan independent from the oppressors.