'I was always in fear – I thought they would kill me': Muslim women describe torture at hands of Chinese authorities in Xinjiang

Gulaisha Oralbai, 46, holds a photograph of her four siblings, all of whom she believes to be detained in by Chinese authorities in "re-education" camps
Gulaisha Oralbai, 46, holds a photograph of her four siblings, all of whom she believes to be detained in by Chinese authorities in "re-education" camps

In the confines of a cramped, dark room, Aigerim was kicked repeatedly in the stomach by a guard wearing heavy, metal-tipped boots. With her mouth taped shut and limbs chained, she couldn’t cry out in pain or block the blows.

In the weeks after those traumatic 24 hours, her abdomen swelled as if she were pregnant. Her periods stopped, and high fevers would come and go. Months after being released from one of China’s internment camps for Muslims, Aigerim, who is in her early 20s, is still struggling to understand her injuries, and is terrified they may have destroyed her dream of becoming a mother. 

“Doctors here in Almaty say there’s internal injury in my uterus,” Aigerim, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told the Telegraph. “I spend all my money on my health, but I haven’t recovered.” China has detained an estimated one million Muslims in camps in Xinjiang, a far western region in China. Officials have called them “vocational training centres” rehabilitating individuals at risk of becoming terrorists. Beijing has even touted its program as a sterling example of success in combating extremism.

But former detainees interviewed by the Telegraph who fled to neighbouring Kazakhstan upon release instead describe systematic torture and political indoctrination. Most declined to give their names on record given threats of detention against their family remaining in China. The vast majority of detainees are believed to be young men, considered by the Chinese state to be the greatest threat to security. But many women have also been locked up on insubstantial grounds, including simply travelling abroad. 

Female former detainees in particular say they have a range of sexual health problems that continue to haunt them even after getting out, including irregular periods. 

Drawings of life inside a Chinese internment camp, by a 23 year old woman who was detained for 6 months
Drawings of life inside a Chinese internment camp, by a 23 year old woman who was detained for 6 months

Guards “wouldn’t give us pads – just one, if you had your period, and that wasn’t healthy for women,” said Gulaisha, whose name has also been changed to protect her identity. 

“They wouldn’t let us go to the toilet whenever we wanted to, so we started having kidney problems and infections,” she said. “We were scared to ask for permission because then the guards would shout and beat you – everything was forbidden.”

They said they were only allowed a cold shower once every two weeks, usually for just a few minutes, sometimes squeezing into the same stall and sharing a bar of soap with dozens of others.

Even when bathing, guards would hover over the women or watch through CCTV cameras. “They could see everything we did,” Aigerim said. “Washing is linked to Islamic ablution, and therefore the desire to wash regularly is seen as a potential link to extremism,” said Jo Smith Finley, a Xinjiang expert at Newcastle University tracking former detainee accounts. Whenever sores developed, including in the genital area, Aigerim said guards would taunt them and force them to wash their bodies with hot peppers, saying it was a form of treatment. 

“If I said, ‘No, I don’t want to wash down there with pepper,’ the guards would say, ‘Then don’t complain that you have health issues,’” said Khalida, 31, whose name has been changed. “They would watch us until we washed our genitals with the pepper…which was very painful.”

The women said they would be stripped, photographed and subject to body cavity searches once a month, sometimes done by male guards. One woman told the Telegraph that the younger women who shared her cell would be escorted away in the middle of the night only to return in the morning, crying and frightened. 

Another said an inmate confided in her of being gang raped while detained in a different facility.

“I was always in fear – I thought they would kill me, or that I might die. I worried I might be raped,” Gulaisha said. “I was always in fear. Then eventually I had to thank them before I got released for ‘teaching’ me. For what? For all this fear, for all these handicaps and health problems?” The 39-year-old also fears she may no longer be able to have children. Women said they were were fed unmarked pills and given injections – nurses administering the medication and shots said they were aspirin and flu vaccines. Aigerim was given nine tablets every day. “I felt dizzy, and my face turned red, after taking the pills.”

The medication – in the form of pills, powder or liquid – appears to be “causing their menses to stop, and can cause blacking out,” said Ms Smith Finley. “This is something that is clearly being administered to women that is not necessarily happening to men.”

People who believe their families and relatives to be detained by Chinese authorities gather at the headquarters of Kazakh Human Rights in Almaty
People who believe their families and relatives to be detained by Chinese authorities gather at the headquarters of Kazakh Human Rights in Almaty

The Chinese government has engaged in a massive propaganda campaign on state media about its program, saying people are voluntarily joining classes, learning useful skills, and happy about their experiences. The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.  "I think I should just stay quiet, but when I hear the Chinese government people say these people are happy, having a great life, it makes me so angry," said Gulaisha. "It's not true - I suffered. None of it was fun...They deprived my daughter of her mother's love for two years."

As elsewhere in the world, Islamophobia in China is often focused on women's dress, and the state apparatus has long been suspicious of any outward displays of belief. The crackdown on Muslim women “started happening a long time ago; we just didn’t register it as a problem,” said Khalida, who eventually stopped wearing a headscarf to avoid getting harassed. 

Last year, Chinese authorities also began cutting women’s long tunics in the street.“But how can we ban ourselves from the culture that we have inherited from our elders?”

Experts say it’s too early to know the full extent of physical and psychological damage to former detainees, but it’s clear that the impact is significant. 

“A lot of people have just been broken by this,” said Gene Bunin, a writer who has collected into a database thousands of testimonies from former detainees and relatives searching for missing family.

Gulaisha was happy to be reunited with her husband after being apart for nearly two years, but says that her time in the camp has changed their relationship. “I even don’t want to look at my husband anymore.” And despite having fled China, Aigerim still doesn’t feel safe. “When there’s a police car, I feel scared,” she said. “I don’t want to look in other people’s eyes, I just want to keep my head down and walk away.”

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