By Daegan Martin and Allazhar Duisenbek
At their October meeting a group of Tower Hamlets councillors uncuccessfully tried to introduce an emergency motion to debate the issue of Uighur persecution and other human rights abuses by the Chinese.
The cross-party group of councillors were not trying to stop the planned move of the Chinese embassy from West London to the old Royal Mint building by Tower Bridge, but they did want their concerns made clear.
Liberal Democrat councillor Rabina Khan – who supported the motion – gave her reasons to Rising East: “We must make clear where our own standards and principles apply. We believe that it is in the People’s Republic of China’s own interest to cease its human rights abuses against the Uighur Muslims and all other detainees.”
Credible reports from groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch detail abuses against the Uighur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region that include the unlawful detention of millions of people, forced labour, forced abortions, sterilisation, and even torture.
In the run up to November’s second attempt to get the issue aired by Tower Hamlets council, we managed to persuade three Uighurs whose families have been affected by the persecution to share their stories.
Story 1: Zumret
Interview by Daegan Martin
Zumret Isaac in an Uighur who fled racism in China and now lives in America under asylum status.
When their usually lively WeChat group – consisting of Zumret (studying in Beijing at the time), her sister Zulhumar (studying in Sweden) and her parents in Xinjiang – fell silent, Zumret and her sister knew something was wrong.
After a few days Zumret was able to contact her father, but her mother was never there, and her father made various “excuses” for her absence such as that she was in hospital, or her phone was broken, or that she had left it somewhere. Then the sisters lost contact with their father as well.
Zumret was aware of Uighur persecution, but hoped her parents would not be taken, as her mother, Zohre Talip, was a former member of the Communist Party and her father, Isaq Peyzul, worked at a pro-communist party newspaper.
But their worst fears were confirmed when Zumret got a phone call from someone claiming to be from a community police station who said he had information that they had been taken to be “re-educated” and wanted to know if they knew why. Zumret, shocked, said she didn’t know but asked the person on the phone if they did. The reply she got was: “I don’t know, either. They’re not taken by us… They’re taken by the Xihe District Department.”
After four months of silence the sisters were finally able to make contact with their parents again, but to this day neither of her parents have said a word about those four months, and deny that they were ever taken anywhere. The sisters believe their parents’ release was helped by their efforts to bring media attention to the story.
When asked about the role of foreign governments, Zumret accused them of doing nothing to help. “No one should feel comfortable doing any type of business with China,” she said. “Foreign governments should at least take a position against the Chinese government. If not, then they are just shaking hands with Nazis.”
Story 2: Saule
Interviewed by Allazhar Duisenbek
Saule Jian (not her real name) fears for her husband’s safety and has therefore left some details out of the following story.
She is an Uighur who was granted Kazakh citizenship after leaving her family in Xinjiang in 2007 to go and live in Kazakhstan. However her husband Abdulla (his name has been changed) does not have dual citizenship, but had to risk returning to Xinjiang province in 2016 after hearing that his cousin was severely injured in a car accident.
“Once he arrived in China,” Saule told me in tears, “he was immediately contacted by police and asked to bring his passport and residence documents. After he went to see the police, they confiscated his documents and he was no longer able to leave the country. Then he went to Urumqi (the capital city of Xinjiang province), and was contacted by his hometown authorities saying that he must see them the next day at 12PM.”
Saule’s relatives in Xinjiang – including her mother – were interrogated and she has evidence that the Chinese police installed listening devices in her relatives’ houses so as to closely monitor their conversations. “My mother… even stopped praying” she claimed, because “…. she can’t use any words that have ‘God’ in it.”
Then the behaviour of her relatives changed, and some of them stopped contacting her. Desperate to find her husband, she decided to go to China and search for him herself. “Once I arrived at my mother’s house, two policemen came… to check my documents asking questions about my husband. I told them that I am a Kazakh citizen and that I’ve been there from 2007. That’s when they told me that he was taken. They told me that he will be out in a week, but after one week it became a few months…”
Eventually her visa expired and she was sent back to Kazakhstan, without ever finding out why he had been sent to a “re-education” camp or if she would ever see him again. When she got back to Kazakhstan, she received a phone call. It was her husband calling her from a Chinese number. “Be careful,” he said, “don’t say anything to anyone, don’t go to officials, don’t post anything controversial. We are very good, they are helping us to get reintroduced into society, learn Chinese culture, everything is good”. Then a week later she received a call from the Chinese police informing her that her husband had divorced her.
I asked Saule what foreign powers could do to help. “I think people outside should plead to their governments to put pressure on Chinese government to allow Uighurs to leave China”, she said. “It’s very difficult for us even to get Kazakh citizenship now, often we end up rejected and sent back to China. In Kazakhstan government officials see it as China’s domestic issues and refuse to admit that these horrible things are happening to us.”
“It’s been four years I haven’t heard from my husband. Our youngest child will turn five soon. It’s very difficult. I am raising our kids alone, when I am at work there is no (parent) to look after them. If my husband was here, I would be home looking after my children. They stole from my children not only a father, but a mother too.”
Although in Zumret’s case they know that their parents are home now, many Uighurs who fled China still have no contact with their loved ones.
Story 3: Aziz
Interview and translation by Allazhar Duisenbek
Aziz Isa Elkun is an Uighur writer and activist who was involved in one of the first Uighur protests led by students, arranging activities and distributing leaflets to get people to join the protest. But “that protest was eventually at the end oppressed by the regime, by police,” he told me.
After he graduated he took a job with the Chinese government. While there, a two year investigation was conducted and he was accused of separatism. He was forced to flee China and has been in the UK since 1999.
Continued activism resulted in him losing contact with his mother in 2017. He didn’t even know if she was alive. Then in February he was shocked to see his mother on Chinese television – denouncing him. In April he was finally able to speak to her, on a Chinese police phone.
“She said, ‘the government has come to visit and they helped me talk to speak to you,’ so I told her, ‘… they are staging you in order to stop me but it’ll not work. Don’t underestimate my strength, my determination. I will do whatever I can do to save you, to protect you. Tell those policemen that they should restore your mobile and telephone connection that they cut off two to three years ago. I will be happy to speak to you directly.’ That’s what I said and then the line went off.”
In the UK Aziz gave interviews to platforms such as the BBC and Channel 4, and as a result is being harrassed on social media as part of a propoganda campaign that he alleges is being orchestrated by the Chinees Government. “How much attack I am receiving at the moment from the Chinese trolls, on the internet, on Twitter,” he told me. “Yesterday, I was thinking that I should deactivate my account.”
Aziz’ exile from China meant he was not there when his father died. Neither was he able to go to his father’s funeral. But he did manage to find his father’s tomb through Google Earth. The satellite images are refreshed very infrequently, so Aziz was lucky to have found it. It gave him comfort to check in now again, but then after 623 days, and another refresh of the satellite view, the tomb had, he alleges, been destroyed. He does not feel safe travelling outside of Europe, but his dream is to somehow get his mother to London so that he can look after her.
Asked about the UK’s stance on Uighur persecution he said, “Shame on the United Kingdom … The United Kingdom should not welcome such (a) genocide supporter, it’s against British values!” Referring to the Chinese flag he added, “That red flag is painted by our blood! You must understand it… Yes, of course there will be lots of debate, but we can voice our opinion, we can campaign on a local level. (The) Chinese government must be held accountable!”
The November meeting of Tower Hamlets Council is on the 18th at 7pm
