I was born in East Turkestan. My husband went to France in 2002. I joined him in 2006, with our two daughters. In 2016, I was lured to go back to China, where I was locked up for almost three years. I could clearly witness the Chinese government’s ongoing genocide.
They first confiscated my passport. They forced me to sign accusations of causing “public disorders.” They put chains on my feet and put me in a cell.
The conditions were terrible inside the camps. There were cameras everywhere. Every single move was watched by the police. The women inside were aged between 17-70 years old, all innocent. We had chains on our feet, and we were forbidden to speak. There were between 30-40 people in a cell.
We were all assigned numbers. I was No. 9.
Before every interrogation session, they put our arms behind our backs and put handcuffs on our wrists. They put a black bag on our heads and placed us on a tiger chair.
We had 11 hours of classes every day. We had to learn the Chinese language, Chinese law, and Chinese history. Every week, we had to learn one new “red” song. On Fridays, we had tests.
Before class and before meals, we had to first thank three main entities: the Chinese government, the Chinese Communist Party, and Xi Jinping. After class and after meals, we had to thank those three entities again.
We received vaccinations, twice a year. After these vaccines, we no longer received our normal periods.
In 2018, I was transferred to a bigger and newly constructed center because the old camp was overcrowded. When I found out how much investment the Chinese government was putting into all this construction, I realized that this project of China’s is not a short-term one..
When I could finally call my family in France for the first time, I was trained for days beforehand by policemen who dictated what I could or couldn’t say. During the call, six policemen watched me the entire time. If my family members asked me a question that the police hadn’t prepared for me ahead of time, they would write down the answers on a notebook for me to say.
