Gulnar Omirzaq’s account of house arrest, surveillance, and discrimination
My name is Gulnar Omirzaq. I’m from Chapchal County – a village called Termenbulaq, in Segizsumyn. I’m going to share everything that happened to me and other members of minority groups that live in China. I am one of the people who witnessed these things.
In 2017, they took my husband to a camp without any explanation. I was left in the city of Ghulja with my two daughters and son. My daughter had just finished studying in inner China and was back home. She couldn’t find a job. My other daughter was studying at the Chapchal County No. 3 School. She faced discrimination at school; her teachers would say “you are the daughter of a terrorist, give us your school tuition or you won’t be allowed to study”. My daughter came home crying and refused to go back to school. My eldest daughter couldn’t work. In the winter, when it was cold, I was unemployed and stayed home with my youngest child. I couldn’t go out because they had a police officer stationed in front of my gate. The police took turns watching our house. They called us the “terrorist family”. We were under their supervision. They told us that we needed to be under supervision and eventually moved us to Segizsumyn in January, during the coldest part of winter.
After the move to Segizsumyn, they put security cameras all over our house. With the security cameras they watched the living areas, saw who came to my house, overheard how I spoke at home, and saw everything I did. After moving us they also forced us to go to Chinese classes in the morning. In the afternoon, we’d come back for lunch and then went back to class. The lessons were about how to write in Chinese and not in Kazakh, learning Chinese culture, learning the official government language and things about Chinese law, politics, and morals. Later, we’d have a break for dinner, but there wasn’t even time to take care of the kids. After dinner, there were meetings. These were secret meetings organized by head leaders, where they gathered people who had been circumcised and so-called “terrorist” families. They made different points about how religion does not exist, how we must not believe in religion, how we must take off our headpieces and hijabs, how we are going to work at factories in inner China, and how our children must speak only Chinese and live like Chinese people. These days, all of these things are out in the public. I’m in contact with my relatives and they are being forced to eat pork or other non-halal food. They are having Chinese culture and cuisine forced on them.
During that time, people we knew weren’t allowed to publicly interact or talk with such so-called “terrorist families” as ours. Relatives couldn’t come to our house. If they did visit and talked to us, they would be taken to camps. People tried to not go out, because if they were seen out a lot they would be taken to the camps. It was so bad that we didn’t even say hi to each other in the streets, but just passed by like we didn’t know each other.
I was going to these classes, my husband was suffering in a camp, my daughter who came back after graduating couldn’t find a job – our whole family was helpless. My daughter tried working in the village, but they ended up not giving her a salary. They made her work for nothing. Some days we didn’t have any food in our home. When we asked for help, they said: “you have to find your own food, you are the families of terrorists, and you can’t skip your language trainings”. If you asked for permission to skip training more than three times you would be thrown into a camp.
While I was going through these hard times in January 2017 [recte: 2018], the Chinese government gave me this document. It said that my third child was born illegally and that I was fined 18500RMB. But if it was illegal, then why did they give me a birth certificate, ID, and passport when my child was born in 2015? Suddenly, they came to my house and demanded that I pay the fine. They told me to pay and that if I didn’t pay I would be sent to a camp. I was taking care of a small child and had to go everywhere to ask for help. I didn’t want my children to be left without parents. Their father was in a camp and if I was sent there too – what would happen to them? I took the risk and took loans from people, paying the fine that was given by the government. I had no house and the place they moved us into had holes, which let water in when it rained.
Everyone, from my neighbors to my relatives and the rest of the village, knew our situation. And my eldest daughter was under government control too. She worked for the village government and they didn’t pay her anything. She worked from morning to evening and was on duty after work as well. Without money, my younger daughter couldn’t go to school. We couldn’t pay her tuition. She looked after her brother while I was busy with government work and language training and meetings. We were really suffering financially and my health was not doing so well either.
Right now, I’m in Kazakhstan. I am getting treatment. My husband got sick while he was in the camp. He was there for a year and eight months. They made us go through all of this. I want the Chinese government to reimburse us for all that they have done to us.