{"id":1845,"date":"2020-08-17T22:19:56","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T13:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/?p=1845"},"modified":"2020-08-17T22:19:56","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T13:19:56","slug":"secret-footage-shows-uighur-mans-detention-inside-chinese-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/2020\/08\/17\/secret-footage-shows-uighur-mans-detention-inside-chinese-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret footage shows Uighur man\u2019s detention inside Chinese prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/05\/secret-footage-uighur-detention-merdan-ghappar-chinese-prison-xinjiang?fbclid=IwAR0aaZJ_egJH2uij9UADIhX75eoG4XF59XPNzw9AEXIB2VIggkFKpFEplIY<\/a>
Merdan Ghappar\u2019s texts and videos reveal shocking conditions in Xinjiang internment camps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rare footage and text messages secretly sent by a detained Uighur man show chilling evidence of human rights violations by China, as global scrutiny of the situation in Xinjiang<\/a> grows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to reports <\/a>by the BBC<\/a> and the Globe and Mail, Merdan Ghappar, a successful model on thee-commerce platform Taobao, was detained after having spent over a year in prison on a drugs charge his supporters said was trumped up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, the 31-year-old Uighur was taken back to Xinjiang by police where he was hooded, shackled and held in a crowded police cell with 50-60 prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Videos and text messages reportedly sent by Ghappar<\/a> provide a detailed account of his detention and the shocking conditions he says he witnessed, including teenage boys being hooded and beaten, and of the widespread use of \u201cfour-piece suits\u201d \u2013 combined restraints that are criticised by human rights groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghappar has not been heard from since March.https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/av\/embed\/p08mr1tm\/53650246<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other text messages revealed how children as young as 13 are targeted as part of China\u2019s efforts<\/a> to suppress the Muslim minority group\u2019s religion and culture, with a document calling on children to \u201crepent and surrender\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA third of the room was taken up by chairs for the duty cops. The rest was men on the right, women on the left, divided up and locked in cages,\u201d Ghappar wrote of the police cell in his texts, which were translated by James Millward, a professor of history at Georgetown University in Washington DC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd from head to toe, they were all wearing four-piece suits. This so-called four-piece suit was a black cloth bag over the head; handcuffs; shackles; and a steel chain between the handcuffs and the shackles.\u201dhttps:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/index.html?creatorScreenName=heldavidson&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1290810381737238528&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2020%2Faug%2F05%2Fsecret-footage-uighur-detention-merdan-ghappar-chinese-prison-xinjiang&siteScreenName=guardian&theme=light&widgetsVersion=223fc1c4%3A1596143124634&width=550px<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his texts, Ghappar described being made to wear the \u201cfour-piece suit\u201d, being threatened, and held in unsanitary, and dangerous conditions, with prisoners besieged by lice and sharing unwashed eating utensils to consume \u201cthe leftovers after the cops had eaten, made into rice soup\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moved to an isolated cell for several days, Ghappar said he could hear the screams of people being interrogated nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne time I heard a man screaming from morning until evening. This was psychological torture to me \u2013 I was afraid, would the next one be me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other prisoners were taken away on minibuses and Ghappar, suffering a cold, was taken to hospital, and then to an isolated room in a neighbouring compound where his belongings were returned to him, including by mistake his phone, which he used to contact his relatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A video, which Ghappar sent to family in Europe, shows his hand handcuffed to a thin bed in a small and empty room, while propaganda announcements play in the background over a speaker system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BBC said his messages continued for a few days before ceasing about five months ago, and that authorities had provided no formal information about his location or the reason for his detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His uncle, Abdulhakim Ghappar, told the BBC he believed Ghappar was detained because he <\/a>had family outside <\/a>China<\/a> who are politically active. \u201cHe was detained just because I am abroad and I take part in protests against Chinese human rights abuses,\u201d he said.https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TKpyaDZkNfU?embed_config=%7B%22relatedChannels%22%3A%5B%5D%2C%22adsConfig%22%3A%7B%22adTagParameters%22%3A%7B%22iu%22%3A%22%2F59666047%2Ftheguardian.com%2Fworld%2Farticle%2Fng%22%2C%22cust_params%22%3A%22permutive%253D23527%252C28165%22%7D%2C%22nonPersonalizedAd%22%3Atrue%7D%7D&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com&widgetid=1Play Video Why more than 1 million Uighurs are being held in camps in China \u2013 video explainer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International focus on Xinjiang has increased in recent months, including widespread calls for independent investigators to be allowed in. The US has imposed sanctions<\/a> over China\u2019s treatment of the Uighur and other Turkic Muslim minorities, while other countries are debating similar measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abuse and mistreatment of the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang has been extensively documented but strenuously denied by Beijing<\/a>, which claims its policies are to counter terrorism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence of mass detention in \u201cre-education camps\u201d, forced sterilisation, surveillance and restrictions on religious and cultural beliefs amounts to cultural genocide, critics have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/aug\/05\/secret-footage-uighur-detention-merdan-ghappar-chinese-prison-xinjiang?fbclid=IwAR0aaZJ_egJH2uij9UADIhX75eoG4XF59XPNzw9AEXIB2VIggkFKpFEplIYMerdan Ghappar\u2019s texts and videos reveal shocking conditions in Xinjiang internment camps Rare footage and text messages secretly sent by a detained Uighur man show … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,4,5],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ethnic-cleansing-crime-against-humanity-genocide","tag-human-rights","tag-mass-detention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1847,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions\/1847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yuzb.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}