“Two Uyghurs who fled from China detailed their family members’ experiences in concentration camps and called on the United States government to take stronger action against the Chinese Communist Party at the third annual International Religious Freedom Summit. Many discussions focused on the plight of Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group primarily residing in the far-western Chinese province of Xinjiang. Uyghurs are targets of harsh treatment by the Chinese Communist Party, which views the ethnic group as inferior to the dominant Han Chinese. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs have found themselves subject to forced labor and torture in the concentration camps to get them to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party. Jewher Ilham (pictured above) hasn’t heard from her imprisoned father in six years. In a 2019 interview with CP, Ilham revealed that her father was set to teach at Indiana University in the U.S. in 2013 when Chinese authorities detained him before he could board a flight to the U.S. While Ilham hasn’t heard from her father in six years and doesn’t know if he is alive or dead, she provided an account of what she learned at the beginning of his captivity. ‘The first few months actually when he was arrested, we learned that he was denied food twice, each time for 10 days. And so, he lost over 40 pounds just within a few months, and all his hair turned gray.’ Ilham shared information she received from a former inmate who was locked up in the same prison as her father but was later released. The former inmate informed Ilham that her father ‘had a small TV in his room that plays Chinese propaganda 24/7 with very loud volume and strong light, the light won’t shut off. So, he basically lives in an environment where it’s 24/7 bright and loud and full of noise of only about praising the Chinese Government, all this propaganda about how China’s great, how the Communist Party is great.’ Ilham suggested that the Chinese Communist Party wants to humiliate her father in retaliation for ‘his criticism over the Chinese government’s practices in the Uyghur region.’ Like Ilham, Kazzat Altay’s father is in prison for criticizing the Chinese government. Altay has resided in the U.S. for nearly two decades after fleeing the country following ‘harassment by Chinese intelligence.’ Based on conversations Altay’s father had with his brother about his experience in detention, he learned that ‘at night, he didn’t want to get up for the restroom because if he gets up, there’s no space for him to sleep.’ Altay cited this as an example of ‘how tight that place is’ and ‘how miserable that place is’ where ‘people were taking turns to sleep at night because there was not enough space.’ He also noted that ‘the restroom was just in the corner, there was no wall, there’s no doors.’”
“Uyghurs detail Chinese prison camp horror stories,” Christian Post, Feb. 3, 2023
