Each one of our warders guided us to a small infirmary, where lab-coated men waited. It was impossible to choose.
I was told by one of the superintendents: ‘You must be vaccinated. You’re 50 years old. Your immune system isn’t what it used to be. If you don’t do this, you might get the flu.’
Terrified of reprisals if I didn’t agree, I signed a document giving my permission. The man in the arm tapped my vein. It was stupid.
I had been a prisoner in a Xinjiang ‘re-education’ camp for a year. Only a line of barbedwire separated us from the rest. That was my only hope.
Other women in the internment camp had told me that their periods had stopped shortly after such ‘vaccinations’. Younger women wept and grieved. After being released from camp, they hoped to have families.
While I had tried comforting them beyond the menopause itself, an awful thought was growing in my mind: Was it our sterilisation?
My fears are now confirmed. Each day new prisoner arrived. Their fearful faces were what I witnessed.
I wanted to shout: ‘Watch out! Don’t get vaccinated!’ But what was the point?
Their turn would come, no matter what, and I’d just get punished. Then I kept my mouth sealed.
Like more than one million other Uighurs, Gulbahar Haitiwaji (pictured) was imprisoned in a Chinese ‘re-education’ camp. Gulbahar Haitiwaji was held in Beijing for three years.
Like more than one million other Uighurs, I was imprisoned in a Chinese ‘re-education’ camp.
Uighurs, Sunni Muslims who practice Turkic culture, are Sunni Muslims. The camps, which China describes as ‘schools’, claim to ‘eradicate Islamist terrorism from Uighur minds’.
In fact, their goal is to exterminate an entire ethnicity.
I am neither a separatist nor an Islamic terrorist – just a mother – but on the basis of a nine-minute trial, I was sentenced to seven years of ‘re-education’. My body was taken through the hell of death and my mind brought to the edge of madness.
This process begins by taking away your individuality. This process takes your name and your clothing, as well as your hair.
You are then forced to repeat the glory of the Communist Party 11 times a day, in a classroom without windows. If you refuse to follow the instructions, you will be sent home.
So you keep saying the same things over and over again until you can’t feel, can’t think any more. It’s like losing all your sense of time.
In the camp, I wasn’t Gulbahar, but Number 9. It was prohibited for me to speak Uighur or pray.
The taste of the disgusting slop in our food was not the only thing that made us feel extra. They were drugging our food to erase our memories.
Both mentally and physically I have become a ghost.
My weight dropped precipitously. My vision was blurred by the blinding sunlight. Below my eyes were two dark shadow pockets.
The Chinese authorities targeted Uighurs with armies of facial-recognition cameras, police on every street corner, and ‘transformation-through-education’ camps. Photo: A Xinjiang’skills Education Centre’
It beat so slow that it was almost impossible to feel my heartbeat when I touched my chest with my fingers.
I was often slapped when I broke the rules. On one occasion I was even shackled to my bed for two weeks.
I endured hundreds of hours interminable interrogations that turned out to be nightmarish, and chaos slowly took control of my soul.
Each week, we saw women being taken from us and never seen them again. At night, we’d wake to terrifying screams, as if someone was being tortured upstairs.
In silence we heard the howls as they pierced through the night. It was the sounds of women screaming in pain, asking guards to not hurt them anymore.
Every corner was a potential spot for death.
We were woken in the dark by the footsteps of guards. I believed it was our moment.
A hand pushed my head with hair clippers. I closed my eyes thinking that I was about to be ready for the scaffold, electric chair or drowning.
My husband Kerim and my two daughters Gulhumar (and Gulnigar) had no clue where I was for two years. They imagined the worst. They thought I was dead.
My family was a Uighur clan that has lived in Xinjiang since generations.
It is located at China’s far Western end and has a jewel more than six-times the size of Britain. Its riches include gold, diamonds, natural gas, uranium, and – above all – oil.
Since being annexed by China, we Uighurs have been the stone in the Beijing regime’s shoe.
Xinjiang has far too many strategic corridors to lose, and President Xi Jinping would like it rid of all separatist populations.
China is looking for a Xinjiang that does not include Uighurs.
My husband and I were both oil engineers. However, our community was subject to an unprecedented level of violence: police inspections, discrimination, interrogations as well as intimidation and threats.
In 2006, my family fled to France.
Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities targeted Uighurs with armies of facial-recognition cameras, police on every street corner, and ‘transformation-through-education’ camps.
2016 was the year I got a call from Boulogne in northern France. The man said he was calling from the oil company where I’d worked.
He told me that I would have to travel to China to be able to sign the documents required to obtain my pension.
As I stood up, a chill ran down my spine. It was a plot to interrogate my mind by the police.
I was living in France right now. However, the trip to China wouldn’t take more than a few weeks. After I had heard the whispering voices inside my head, I purchased a round-trip flight to Karamay (Xinjiang).
Seeking to soothe things, but also just because the thought happened to cross my mind, I said: ‘I hope nothing happens to me!’
My daughter got upset and said she hoped I hadn’t jinxed myself. I didn’t know how accurate she was.
When I arrived at the company office to sign the documents, I was put in handcuffs by police and asked why I’d left China for France.
A police officer shoved the photo right under my nose. Gulhumar my daughter was there protesting Chinese repression in Xinjiang.
The officer put his fist down on the table. ‘Your daughter’s a terrorist!’
I replied: ‘No. I don’t know why she was at that demonstration. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, I swear!’
Since being annexed by China, we Uighurs have been the stone in the Beijing regime’s shoe
I’m not sure what happened next. It was that photograph, the aggressive questions they asked and me giving futile answers.
Uighurs living abroad or having close relationships with people in that country were considered the greatest threats to the government.
Our actions were viewed as spying. Judgment on the order of the ‘Great Western Betrayal’ lay in store for us.
What a fool I was. After a string of questions – always the same – they led me to the county jail.
Cell 202’s relentless light ruined all notions of day and night. In Cell 202, there was an endless parade of zombies in jumpsuits with rings around their eye.
After five months, I was told I was being taken to ‘school’ to undergo ‘training’. If I showed proof of discipline and rigour in my work, I might graduate ‘in a few months’.
For eleven hours every day, all of the earth was reduced to one rectangular room. All 40 people were wearing blue pajamas. We were all covered by a large metal shutter.
Our ‘physical education’ was tantamount to military training.
Weary bodies raced through the space unassisted, back-and-forth, side by side, corner by corner.
When the soldier bellowed ‘At ease!’, our regiment of prisoners froze.
He then ordered us to stop. It could go on for half an hour, but it can also last several hours.
Our camp was on the outskirts of the city of Karamay, a no-man’s-land from which three buildings rose, each the size of a small airport. The only thing that was visible beyond the barbed-wire fence was desert.
Sometimes one would fall unconscious. When the prisoner fails to revive, a guard will yank her feet while slapping her awake.
If she collapsed again, he’d drag her out of the room and we’d never see her again. Ever.
Additionally, we were instructed patriotic songs. ‘You must learn them by heart, or you will be punished.’ All day long, we croaked out these refrains.
‘Take a stand! Get up Stand up! We are billions of one heart, braving the enemies’ fire. Keep marching! Braving the enemies’ fire, march on! Continue marching Continue on! On!’
Our camp was on the outskirts of the city of Karamay, a no-man’s-land from which three buildings rose, each the size of a small airport.
There was no other place than desert beyond the fence of barbed wire.
The dormitory contained a toilet bucket and a shuttered metal window. Two cameras were also present, which could pan backwards in the high corners.
Even worse were the theory classes that replaced physical training. We recited a kind of pledge of allegiance to China: ‘Thank you to our great country. We are grateful to the Party. Our dear President Xi Jinping, thank you.
It was that simple. No real mattress. Furniture is not allowed. No toilet paper. There are no sheets. There is no sink.
We were made to fall by the military rules. We were interrupted by the sound of whistles at every moment: at breakfast, dinner, and bed.
Our guards were always watching. She was charged with praying if one of us whispered, wiped her lips or did anything else.
Even worse were the theory classes that replaced physical training. We were constantly watched by the teacher. Every chance that she had, she slapped us.
All of us stood as one when she signaled. Lao shi hao!
This greeting to the teacher kicked off 11 hours of daily ‘education’.
We recited a kind of pledge of allegiance to China: ‘Thank you to our great country. Our Party deserves our gratitude. Thank you to our dear President Xi Jinping.’
We echoed the words as parrots, gluing ourselves to our chairs. We were instructed in China’s glorious history, washed clean of all its abuses.
I laughed at it initially. They thought they could make us laugh with just a few propaganda pages.
However, the days passed and I became exhausted. My resolve to resist fell apart.
Baijiantan Camp is an enormous labyrinth filled with endless, fluorescent-lit corridors. The maze was sealed off by automatic security doors at its far end.
The sheer amount of prisoner and guards we encountered gave me an idea of how huge the camp was. Each day I was greeted by new faces.
I was cut off from all the other world and my determination crumbled. This exhausting daily routine became one long, tedious day.
The repression in Xinjiang was moving at a faster pace from the outside.
The regulations forbid beards and headscarves. They also prohibit you from giving Uighur names to your children, using WhatsApp or communicating abroad with others.
Provincial authorities collected DNA and fingerprints for millions of residents under the pretext of massive public health programmes. All of the suspects were from Xinjiang. Pictured: A suspected re-education camp in Artux City, Xinjiang
Provincial authorities collected DNA and fingerprints for millions of residents under the pretext of massive public health programmes. All suspects in the Xinjiang case were the people.
For two years, while I’d been wasting away, my daughter, Gulhumar, had been working like a fiend for my survival and release.
She reached out to everyone we’d known in Xinjiang: family, friends, acquaintances. She tirelessly scrutinised the Chinese internet for proof of the camps’ existence.
In winter 2017, after dead-end after dead-end, my file ended up in Paris at the French Foreign Ministry.
Gulhumar was referred by a friend to the Embassy for Human Rights in France. Gulhumar was assured that his case would be handled as though he were French citizen.
In Beijing, delicate negotiations began between the French Foreign Ministry and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In early 2018, a stunned world found out about the ‘schools’ in Xinjiang.
China’s perfect surface was cracking as accounts from survivors started popping up and images from whistleblowers made their way around the world.
It was November and the day of trial arrived. It was then that the court reminded me that my crime were serious enough to land me in prison. The court also sent me to school so that I could continue to learn.
The world was now reduced to seven years. My ears were buzzing and everything was spinning. Seven years.
I chose to let my body die. I had felt the idea for some time, and my sentence just encouraged me.
Then, a sequence of events pushed me into fear and then hope.
My interrogator was dragging me along for six days at a time, ten hour a day, from March 2019 until finally I surrendered. I was repeatedly told by my interrogator that my husband was a member of terrorist organisations.
After I had my hair done, a group of ladies drew my locks, and then they rubbed my face with eye shadow, lipstick, and mascara.
‘Apparently, you were very co-operative during your interrogation. You’re going to say everything you said all over again but this time, for the camera,’ I was told.
I was told by other women in prison about the police methods for recording confessions. They could tape your confession and then dangle their words above your heads as blackmail.
While they were filming me, my husband begged me to quit the Uighur community and swear loyalty to China. I wept alone, in a cell, afterward.
China was stealing my thoughts. As a reward for my ‘confession’, I was taken to a new building, where I was given cooked meals, new clothes and a soft bed, while police officers took turns keeping watch over me day and night.
Also, I was permitted to call my French family. But, that would mean I’d have to lie.
Reproduce the Communist Party propaganda, which used the most bizarre tactics possible to hide the fate of Uighurs living in China.
I was forced to rehearse the lines that I would tell my family by police officers. The general idea is all I can remember.
‘I’m doing well, don’t worry, I rented an apartment. I’m alone. Don’t worry.’
Did the police use the telephone call to try and trap my family? They would have known I was telling a bunch of lies.
Would the deafening silence all around me during the call tip them off that I wasn’t alone, that I was on speakerphone surrounded by police officers busy scribbling down my husband’s and my daughter’s words in notebooks?
My husband’s voice was so loud that he seemed to be shaking from the sound of my voice. He choked out: ‘Where are you? We’ve been doing everything we can to free you.’
His knowledge of Xinjiang police interrogation methods was extensive and he knew I was surrounded with half a dozen party henchmen. I answered every question with my silences
Intelligence services in Xinjiang were interested in my family’s very public search for me.
My daughter Gulhumar in France had spoken to journalists about me. She demanded that China free me.
On TV, she was openly condemning ‘re-education’ camps. My husband was posting articles on his Facebook Page. An online petition circulated.
My bedroom became the headquarters of a Chinese intelligence operation against me and my family.
If I ever got out of here and went back to my quiet life in Boulogne, I’d have to tell my family about what had happened to me here in Xinjiang.
All of it was too awful to share, all too painful a tale to tell. But I was forced to.
During another call home, I was made to tell my daughter: ‘Do not speak about the Uighurs and criticise the Chinese government in the media any more. This is very serious. If you ever want to see me, you must stop.’
My husband and she had to accept that my case was not being reported by the French media or authorities.
Then, and only then, would I discreetly be returned to France. I accepted police violence. I signed even a false confession.
You can’t fight off brainwashing forever. Once you’ve fought it with dignity, all desire and willpower desert you. Are there other options?
A slow, excruciating slide toward death or… submission. I was first put in prison and later in camp. My soul was broken into pieces and drifted apart, and it would never be the same again.
Chinese authorities thought I was sincere about my repentance. The Chinese authorities believed that I had repented and I did not believe one word.
After being forced to sign another confession on August 2, 2019, I was declared innocent by Karamay’s judge.
It was my choice to go back to France. However, for three years of my existence that were taken from me I received no apology.
I should feel intense joy throughout my entire body. Yet, it was exactly the opposite.
Those unspeakable things I saw – prisoners hollowed-out shells of themselves, all those people reduced to less than human beings by the brutal shock of repression – how could I ever forget them?
I was worried my family wouldn’t recognise me. I wasn’t the same person any more.
My plane was illuminated by golden light as it landed in Paris. It was lit up in golden light. How could I get it back?
Baijiantan’s cold corridors were still a part of me.
China’s concentration camps in Xinjiang are far from being stopped. Yet, the UN has not yet been able see the full extent of the genocide.
Those unspeakable things I saw – prisoners hollowed-out shells of themselves, all those people reduced to less than human beings by the brutal shock of repression – how could I ever forget them?
How I Survived A Chinese Re-Education Camp, by Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Rozenn Morgat, is published by Canbury Press on February 3 at £18.99.
To pre-order a copy for £17.09 go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937 before February 7. Free UK delivery on orders over £20.