China's Other Genocide: the 'Mother of the Uyghurs' Speaks Out

By Richard Gale and Gary Null, AlterNet. Posted June 24, 2009.

I saw the suffering of our people, but I thought that if I could peacefully bring these issues to the attention of the top leaders in China that they would address them. So I was able to document the situation of the Uyghurs and even produce a report that I submitted to Chinese officials hoping that they would give attention to the issues and then change the situation.

The Chinese government always propagates that stability and the unity of nationality are priorities. I believed that was their top concern, and then I hoped by addressing the problems there would be true civility and the unity of nationalities in China. I [eventually] realized that the Chinese Communist Party was not interested in addressing the suffering and the persecution of the Uyghur people at all.

The so-called stability and unity of nationalities were all just lies and used by the authorities to crackdown on the Uyghurs. Then, I thought the best way to let the world know about the human-rights violations was to inform foreign officials, especially to the U.S., because the U.S. has always been very concerned with the human rights situation in China.

The Uyghur people always have this strong faith in the United States government, believing that it would care about their human-rights situation, their suffering and it will give them aid. So while I was on my way to meet a member of a U.S. congressional delegation, I was arrested by the Chinese authorities and later sentenced to eight years for revealing so-called state secrets.

Actually I didn't possess any kind of state secrets. I only sent some newspaper clippings to my husband. The newspapers were already publicly available and published. So I was sentenced to eight years in prison, and the first two years I was solitarily confined. During my six years of incarceration, I was prohibited to read, write, watch anything, listen to anything and even to look at other inmates. All I needed to do was just sit there grabbing my knees and only do the things I was asked or ordered to do.

The only time I wrote something was when I was ordered to sign something. Once, two Uyghur women were stripped naked in front of me by two prison guards. Then they just beat them up very badly, and they forced them to eat poker cards. Then they asked me, "Why don't you save them. Aren't you supposed to help your people?"

Another time, they tortured two young men in front of me and said the same things. "Why don't you save them.?" That's how they psychologically tortured me, and they also punished other inmates just for looking at me. Whenever I was dragged in and out of my cell, outside or to some other place, the inmates were supposed to look in a different direction and not at me. Whoever looked at me was punished.

Daily the Uyghur political prisoners are required to recite 58 times that they are criminals, and they also have to recite 58 times the accusations brought upon them by the Chinese authorities. At the same time, they have to praise the Chinese Communist Party for its rule over our homeland. Then they are allowed to eat. So if you forget one thing to say, or if you stutter, then you can't eat that morning or afternoon.

Any religious person who acknowledges God or says the word "god" is severely punished. When the person denounces God, they can eat. I actually saw one 18-year-old Uyghur female prisoner saying, "I believe in God." They chained both her hands and her feet together for two weeks.

So these are some of the tortures that I witnessed in prison, and there are many other ways the authorities torture political prisoners of course.

WPFW: Now with the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square, speak about the event at Ghuljar in 1997. I recall you were arrested at least twice trying to investigate what actually happened there. Although the demonstration did not result in as large a massacre as at Tiananmen Square, the aftermath of gathering Uyghurs, mass executions and imprisonments were still large. Yet this event was virtually nonexistent in the American media, and most people have never heard of it. So briefly, what happened there and what now is considered the actual cost of human life that resulted from it?

RK: Yes. One thing I would like to say before I touch upon the Ghuljar massacre is, as soon as the Chinese authorities cracked down using tanks and killed so many Chinese students at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, a lot of Uyghur students took to the streets in our homeland. They also donated money to help those who were injured or killed. But the Chinese authorities, of course, accused these Uyghurs of separatism. But they only tried to help the Chinese students who were injured.

During the Ghuljar massacre, the Uyghurs took to the streets peacefully to demand their rights and freedoms. In order to show they were peaceful, they all raised their hands and put their hands on their necks. But the Chinese authorities instead of addressing their legitimate concerns sent in fully armed paramilitary police and also deployed so-called People's Liberation Army troops from other provinces to crackdown upon the peaceful protest.

See more stories tagged with: america, 9/11, china, terrorism, barack obama, u.s., uyghurs, xianjang, rebiya kadeer

Gary Null is host of the nation’s longest-running radio show on alternative health and an award-winning director of progressive documentary films. Richard Gale is the executive producer of the Progressive Radio Network and a scholar in Chinese languages, religion and culture.

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