My wife was detained, released, and disappeared again in China. Here's my message on behalf of my people, the Uighurs.
Courtesy of Mamutjan AbdurehimMamutjan Abdurehim and his family at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in May 2015.
- Mamutjan Abdurehim is from Kashgar, Xinjiang – the Chinese region known now for its severe surveillance, arbitrary detentions, and forced labour.
- Abdurehim was separated from his wife and two young children in 2015, when they were forced to return to Xinjiang under the guise of a goverment request for a passport renewal. He stayed in Malaysia, where he was studying.
- His wife was taken from their Kashgar home in April 2017 and sent to one of China’s detention camps for Uighur Muslims.
- Two years later, Abdurehim found out through a WeChat video that she was released from the prisons and back living in Kashgar.
- He has now discovered, through via coded messages from sources back home, that she has since disappeared again and likely is jailed for five years.
- In a personal essay for Insider, Abdurehim tells his story and explains why he is speaking out.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
No words can properly describe how agonizing the past three years have been for me. I never imagined what it would be like to lose my family to a black hole where nobody knows what happens.
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I am from Kashgar, a city in Xinjiang, western China. The region has in recent years become synonymous with
severe surveillance,
arbitrary detentions, and
forced labour.
My wife, Muherrem Ablet, was taken away from our home in Kashgar and sent to a government detention camp on April 15, 2017. Our two young children were left behind with our parents.
Muherrem couldn’t have known it was coming. The day before she was taken, we were speaking on WeChat, and nothing seemed amiss.
All I know is what my parents told me the following day: That she was called in for a “study program” for a short period of time.
That is, I now know, a common euphemism for China’s detention camps, which are reported to be in dire condition, and where people endure
psychological and physical torture so they would become loyal to the Communist Party.
On the day Muherrem was taken away, party agents said she was being detained, but was allowed family visits at her camp once a week.
Those promised visitations ended after the first one.
I did not know then that it would mark the beginning of the mass internment of Uighurs (activists estimate that
between 1 and 2 million have been detained). My wife would have been one of the first to be taken away.
‘Graduation’
In late May 2017, Muherrem texted me on WeChat saying that she had come home for a day “under guarantee of a family member” – meaning someone in the family promised to send her back, or be punished otherwise.
One or two days later, I found that she had changed her profile picture and deleted me from her contacts list – presumably before being returned to the camps.
She remained there until May 2, 2019.
I know this because that day I had come across a video of my son, Hikmet, on a relative’s WeChat page, where he could be seen screaming euphorically: “My mum has graduated!”
“Graduation” is a common euphemism for being released from the camps.
I can’t recall how many times I frantically watched and rewatched that video that day.
Seeing my son reunited with his mother gave me some peace. To be sure, I begged an acquaintance in Kashgar to confirm it for me. After many prodding messages, they confirmed after two weeks that Muherrem had come home and I need not worry.
Until recently, I had been under the impression that she was home, safe, after two years of internment. I can’t know for sure; I have not been able to have any conversations with her or anyone else in my family, as they have since told me to stop contacting them.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/...amutjan-abdurehim-wife-detained-ordeal-2020-7