Ten years in prison for teaching Islam: Data leak reveals torture in Uyghur camps in northwest China

Created: 05/25/2022, 13:21

By: Claudia Möllers

Forced labour, sterilization, re-education: the Uyghurs in north-west China are subjugated with brute force.

A data leak reveals the extent of the oppression.

Munich – "How can he plan terrorist attacks when he doesn't even know how to hold a knife?" Mahmud Tohti, who fled to Turkey from the Xinjiang region years ago, is crying in despair at his son's fate.

Tohti, who has had no contact with his family for years, is only now learning through a sensational data leak that one of his sons has been sentenced to ten years in prison in China.

Because of the alleged preparation of terrorist activities, as reported by Bayerischer Rundfunk.

and BBC News, BR is

one of the media partners worldwide who evaluate the "Xinjiang Police Files" - on the day that UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Bachelet is in China and also wants to visit Xinjiang.

The 10 gigabyte data leak contains information about around 300,000 Chinese, mostly Uyghurs, who have been registered by the authorities.

There are 2,900 portraits of men and women between the ages of 15 and 73 who disappeared in detention camps.

China's treatment of the Uyghurs: Islam lessons or WhatsApp use are enough for camp detention

This is

the photo of the shaved Abdughini I, staring at the camera with a fixed gaze.

The documents reveal that he was sentenced to five years and eleven months in prison for inciting terrorist activities.

What drove the authorities to make this accusation?

That he was illegally instructed in religion by his father when he was seven and that another man taught him Islam in 2007.

The documents also show that in 2016 he is said to have used a VPN service on his mobile phone to avoid censorship.

In Xinjiang, however, the police regularly check cell phones during roadside checks.

Anyone who has downloaded banned apps such as WhatsApp runs the risk of disappearing into a warehouse.

An 18-year-old was also arrested for training in a fitness center for two weeks.

The documents now offer a rare insight into how Chinese authorities are dealing with the Uyghurs.

The pictures, it is said, are from 2018 and come from a re-education camp in Tekes, west of Ürümqi.

But texts also reveal terrible things: The former party leader Chen Quanguo issued a speech in 2018 when prisoners escaped: "First kill, then report."

China wants to re-educate Uyghurs

The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking people who have their main settlement in the area of ​​the former Turkestan - today mainly in the Chinese Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang in north-west China.

Almost all Uyghurs belong to Islam.

The People's Republic of China has been pursuing an aggressive settlement policy since 1949 and has brought mostly Han Chinese to the region.

Citing the need for greater internal security, the Chinese government has been using increasing violence against the Uyghurs for the past five years: They are put in mass internment camps, forcibly sterilized and "re-educated".

China: Photos and texts expose torture in Xinjiang

The revelations contradict official Chinese claims that the camps are “educational institutions” attended voluntarily.

The data material had been leaked to the researcher Adrian Zenz, who works for the "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation" in Washington and had previously uncovered the situation in Xinjiang with other publications.

One photo shows a prisoner sitting on a so-called "tiger chair" with both hands tied.

These chairs are used for torture purposes.

There are also images of a shirtless detainee whose chest clearly shows signs of abuse.

A detainee is interrogated by Chinese police while sitting on a so-called "tiger chair".

© Xinjiang Police Files

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China's government rejects Xinjiang allegations: "Wealthy society"

China's government, however, dismisses the allegations as "defamatory".

She sees "anti-Chinese forces" behind the publication.

"Spreading rumors and lies cannot deceive the world and hide the fact that Xinjiang has a peaceful, prosperous society and a thriving economy, and people live and work in peace and happiness," foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told the press in Beijing.

According to human rights activists, hundreds of thousands have been sent to re-education camps in Xinjiang.

China's leadership accuses Uyghurs in the region of separatism, extremism and terrorism, while the Muslim minority feels politically, religiously and culturally oppressed.

After taking power in 1949, the communists incorporated the former East Turkestan into the People's Republic.

The pictures and secret documents also trigger sharp criticism in Germany.

The new data leaks "unmask Chinese propaganda and reveal a picture of horror," said Renata Alt (FDP), Chair of the Bundestag's Human Rights Committee.

China's goal is to eradicate the culture, religion and identity of the Uyghurs.

An entire nation is being accused of terrorism across the board.

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