The following is a detailed eyewitness account attributed to a Falun Gong practitioner from Urumqi, originally published in Mandarin on the Clear Wisdom website and translated here with minor stylistic edits. While authored anonymously, it is nevertheless consistent in many aspects with what has been reported elsewhere, and also mentions specific information about a concrete victim that is consistent with what has been reported in internal police records. Furthermore, given Clear Wisdom’s history of providing reports that have consistently seen multiple details corroborated, we consider the account as highly credible and recommend it strongly, as it gives a rare perspective of the camp system (coming from a demographic that wasn’t the main target of the mass incarcerations).
Other versions (external): 中文, ئۇيغۇرچە
A few days ago, police from the neighborhood administration came to my home and brought up how we Falun Gong practitioners had been caught up in the “stability maintenance” measures of 2017, aimed at the Uyghur and other minority groups, which resulted in us being sent to “study classes” in the various districts (presented to the outside world as “education-and-training centers”). Afterwards, we were designated as part of the so-called “focus population” and managed accordingly. The police mentioning this made me involuntarily recall everything that I had experienced at the so-called “education-and-training centers”, starting in 2017.
At the end of March 2017, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region sent down the “Deradicalization Regulations”, and after April the mass detentions began. The basic scheme had the neighborhood administration employ various excuses to summon its residents to come in, after which they’d be taken to pre-trial detention centers. Upon arrival, they were immediately handcuffed and shackled and would remain so until the transfer to an “education-and-training center”. Those started in around July, with the people in the various pre-trial detention centers being distributed across the various “education-and-training centers”.
I was taken there from my home in 2017, a few days before the Wicked Party’s 19th National Congress. Starting in 2018, it became standard to send people to the “education-and-training centers” directly from home. The term used by the neighborhood administration was “lists sent down”: a list of names that the higher authorities would flag and send down to the neighborhood administration, who would then use them to send people to the “education-and-training centers”. That was the procedure in Urumqi, and it was roughly similar all over Xinjiang, though implementation in southern Xinjiang was even more severe. In terms of scale, what I will describe below concerns the events and people of only one district, from the seven districts and one county that make up Urumqi. When considering the entire city and the whole of Xinjiang, it seems certain that the scale would not be less than several million people.
The following is what I observed and heard at the “education-and-training centers”. Since they kept us in the dark about everything, with everything highly secretive, some of the information had to be inferred through observation.
I. Who made up the “staff” of the “education-and-training centers”
According to what I’ve observed, the “education-and-training centers” were coordinated by the Autonomous Region Political and Legal Affairs Commission, with the public security bureau police stations, the education system, the neighborhood administrations, and other units all assisting with the implementation. As such, the staff was also composed of people transferred over from these departments and made responsible for the security, the teaching of classes, and the daily organizational management, respectively. Logistics personnel were present as well. Everyone wore police uniforms, with security mainly handled by the reassigned People’s police, and classes taught by teachers who had been transferred over from various schools. The reassigned neighborhood-administration employees were mainly charged with the day-to-day management.
There was also a staff position known as “patrol leader” – these were temporary workers recruited from the community who patrolled the corridors 24 hours a day and were responsible for opening doors, serving meals, and distributing supplies, among other things. They were a real mix in terms of personal qualities, with some prone to drinking and finding, and some homosexual. There were also some patrol leaders who, despite having worked a good share, would end up on the lists sent down by the neighborhood administration, to be interned themselves. Later, when things got a little better, some of them quietly told us that their wages had been miserly, and that they had signed the contracts without being allowed to even look at them.
II. Who made up the “trainees” (the people detained for forced brainwashing)
For the most part, these were people that the government considered as influenced by “extremism”, all of them from the ethnic minority groups. For example, these could be people who had previously been punished for wearing black robes. There were also those who traveled to or studied in “sensitive countries” (almost every country in the world being considered sensitive), people with “extremist” family members, people whose families had people serving prison terms, those who had scaled the Great Firewall, tour guides, drug users, people who had finished serving their sentences and were released from prison (but were sent to the “education-and-training centers” directly from the prisons upon release), and people with issues in their household registrations. There were also “12-4 case” individuals (in reference to the one-time December 4, 2017 city-wide operation that targeted certain high-ranking Muslim figures and other related individuals), as well as compilers of “poisonous teaching materials”. There were all kinds of reasons, as numerous as they were varied.
Meanwhile, some people didn’t even know why they were brought in. Someone recounted how the neighborhood administration had asked her husband to come over, and how she accompanied him, only for the both of them to be sent to different “education-and-training centers”. A small number were ethnic Han, which for the most part included petitioners, those with clear religious beliefs, drug users, and those involved in fights and brawls.
The ages spanned from 16-year-old minors to elderly people in their eighties, including disabled people and those who couldn’t take care of themselves. It was not uncommon for family members to be taken together, and there were many cases where entire families were interned.
In terms of professions, there were university students who were either in the middle of their studies or had just graduated within the previous two years, high school students about to take the college entrance examination (minors), teachers employed at schools, doctors, lawyers, and government workers, as well as those engaged in business, housewives, and so on and so forth, basically covering every profession and trade. I heard that among the ethnic minorities, those with any bit of prestige were all brought in, regardless of profession. The number of people would fluctuate, but it was probably around one thousand (counting only the female “trainees” from the Tianshan District of Urumqi).
III. The daily routine
The daily routine, for 365 days without exception, was the so-called “militarized management”. You woke up at 7:30 AM (the hours of the Xinjiang routine were two hours behind Beijing time) to wash up, do the morning reading (mainly the Deradicalization Regulations, law books, Mandarin textbooks), do the radio calisthenics (inside the room), sing red songs, and eat. After breakfast, you would stand at attention for 20 to 30 minutes, and then prepare for the so-called “class”, which was basically chatting with each other while holding a book in your hands. There were also groups who went to actual classrooms, where they were taught by teachers, but that type of class was usually less than once a day. Initially, it was the teachers transferred from the various schools who taught the classes, but some of them weren’t even fully literate themselves, and so later they’d start allowing “trainees” with good Mandarin skills to teach everyone.
Classes ended at 1:30 PM, after which came more red songs, eating, and a nap. At 3 PM, you’d wake back up, stand at attention, and start classes again at 3:30 PM. At 7 PM, you’d sing more red songs and eat again. At 8:30 PM, there was recitation and fire drills. At 9:30 PM, you’d start to wash up while watching TV, which was mainly the Xinwen Lianbo and the Xinwen Lianbo for Xinjiang, as well as some red movies and some TV dramas. You’d go to bed at 11:30 PM. There were nighttime duties like those at a pre-trial detention center.
IV. Living conditions
1) Accommodation
We had the experience of living in a succession of different places. The first was in Ulanbay, and was an old repurposed tube-shaped apartment building, four floors in total – the first floor reserved for offices and the second to fourth for the “trainees”. The entrance was mantrap-style, with iron doors, iron-barred windows, and anti-rush chains. The windows in particular, in addition to the ordinary stainless-steel bars, had a diamond-shaped grille (with an edge length of about four centimeters) nailed to the wall on the interior. Later, following an inspection by the political and legal affairs commission, they added another layer of iron mesh to the diamond-shaped grille, with a mesh opening of less than two centimeters. I counted and found that you had a total of seven iron doors to pass through if you wanted to go from the room to the furthest main gate.
There was no running water in the room – only a large communal bed and a plastic toilet bowl. Washing up, using the toilet, and showering were all done in a communal area at the end of the corridor. I stayed there for about a year. Because the conditions in the restroom were awful (it was a long squatting pit, with several people lined up one after another and going at the same time), and because they always rushed us, there was an Uyghur girl who ended up not having a bowel movement for ten or twenty days. Her belly became swollen and she would keep crying.
The second place was a typical pre-trial detention center. I was transferred there in around November 2018. There, each room had a large communal sleeping area and an open restroom, as well as a shower head available for a weekly shower. I stayed there for about half a year. After I left, this place would be repurposed into dormitories for a clothing factory where “trainees” learned skills. Specifically, I heard that the renovations involved closing off the restrooms and replacing the communal sleeping areas with bunk beds.
The third place was something that looked like a workshop and a club building, at another pre-trial detention center. I moved there in around May 2019. The club building housed over a hundred people, including those with AIDS, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases, all living together and without any restrooms. Every day, we had to wait in line for a long time to use the toilet and wash up. Those who lived in the workshop-like area suffered even more – they only had one window near the very top of the room, which, as the door wasn’t open, made for terrible ventilation. In the summer, it would be stifling inside, and we’d sweat profusely. I stayed at this place for about two months.
The second and third places were very close to each other, in the area around Hua’ergou Road.
In around July 2019, I was transferred to the fourth place, which was a so-called “Loving Heart Hospital”. It was in a very remote place. I don’t know the exact location, only that it was in the southern outskirts of Urumqi. By then, the situation had changed – the ethnic-minority civil servants had already returned home, and most of the young people had gone to factories (factories that were still part of the “education-and-training centers”). Still left was a significant number of people who couldn’t go home, which included people like us, who were taken in without a clear label (seeing as we had absolutely nothing to do with “deradicalization”), those who didn’t have a neighborhood administration to accept them, and the sick, among others. As they converted a detention center into a so-called “Loving Heart Hospital”, the “trainees” were re-identified as “patients” overnight, and the so-called “study” was no more. The communal sleeping areas were replaced with single beds, the open bathrooms were closed off, and it was now permitted to shower at any time.
Of the four places, the first had been exclusively for female “trainees”, while the subsequent ones housed both men and women. Both the first and second places were especially cramped, and anyone who couldn’t find a space to sleep would just be added to the number of people on night duty. For the others, there wasn’t enough room for so little as a 40-centimeter pillow. In every place we stayed, all the areas where “trainees” could go were under 24-hour surveillance and had the lights on 24 hours a day. Moreover, when sleeping at night, not only was covering one’s head not allowed, but even placing an arm over the eyes to block out the light was prohibited.
2) Clothes
A trainee’s hair was cut short as soon as they entered the “education-and-training center”, with them having to undress completely in front of the police to change into the provided attire. Everyone was given two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, one set of thermal underwear, and one set of outer clothing, which was a gray tracksuit. Additional items were provided as needed, and there were short-sleeved T-shirts in the summer. In the winter, there was also a set of cotton-padded clothes, which I heard were exactly like those in prison. Black cloth shoes were worn in the summer, and cotton-padded sneakers in the winter.
3) Food
There were three meals a day, basically the same as in a pre-trial detention center, but unlike in the detention center you couldn’t pay extra to get additional food. Breakfast consisted of congee/porridge + steamed buns + salted vegetables, sometimes with egg, sometimes without. Lunch was vegetable soup + steamed buns/rice, occasionally upgraded to pilaf. Dinner was vegetable soup or rice mixed with soup + steamed buns. Certainly, there were times when it wasn’t enough to fill you up, but the “trainees” could hardly dare ask for seconds. Because their (the “education-and-training center” staff’s) response would be: “Are you here to study or to eat?”
The quality of the food also gave cause for concern. You could find peeled vegetable skins and bugs in the vegetable soup. There was a period when the potatoes had sprouted, causing allergic reactions in the “trainees” who ate them. At one point, the vegetable soup was extremely salty, and you had to pour out the soup and rinse once or twice with tap water before it was edible. Fruit or yogurt were provided occasionally. There were slight improvements during the New Year and other festivals – for example, fruit or yogurt were provided daily from the first to the third day of the New Year, and each person would receive a few pieces of candy.
4) Washing
Showering and washing clothes at the first place were inconvenient as there was no proper plumbing. In the winter, we showered once a week, and in the summer, once every three days. Because there were so many people, three or four would usually share a single showerhead. And while they might have said that we had fifteen minutes, this was never actually honored. In part because there was simply not enough hot water, and in part because the patrol leader wanted to finish early. I remember how, during my first time showering, I had just finished washing my hair when our group’s time was suddenly up, and we had to leave and go back.
For washing clothes, each room was given a large tub. All our clothes, whether underwear or outerwear, were washed inside the room in this single tub, with someone then assigned to rinse them in the washroom. The washed clothes could only be hung from the window bars mentioned earlier, dripping water onto the sleeping area. Later, they’d weld some clothes racks in the washroom, and we finally had somewhere to hang clothes. Although we could shower every three days in the summer, clothes could still only be washed once a week, and the T-shirts would get really stiff.
At the second place, seeing as how we were in the Gobi Desert, the water would be hauled in by water trucks. And it was winter too, with the water for washing clothes ice cold. Initially, your hands would feel icy, bone-chillingly cold, before eventually turning completely red, numb, and devoid of any sensation.
5) Healthcare
The doctors at the “education-and-training centers” were also transferred from various hospitals. They were responsible for the medical examinations of new arrivals, and then for the routine medical care. Besides the common ailments, like headaches and colds, they’d primarily focus on the routine treatments for such potentially fatal conditions as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and would also distribute medication or administer insulin to diabetic patients. If someone had mental health illnesses like depression, or infectious diseases like tuberculosis, or diseases that could not be routinely treated, they’d be sent to designated hospitals, which had set up dedicated and tightly sealed-off areas especially for “trainees”. At the Loving Heart Hospital, the doctors would visit twice a day, in the morning and evening, while in other places there would only be a single visit, in the evening.
6) “Study”
The so-called “education-and-training centers” advocated the “three studies and a D”: language study, law study, skills study, and deradicalization. While they might have called it a “school”, there wasn’t much in the way of normal study or attending of classes. As an example: despite the number of people increasing from four hundred at the beginning to over eight hundred later at the first place we stayed, the only classrooms allocated were the one or two rooms in color-coated metal prefabs. The rooms had fixed desks and chairs. In the space between the desks and chairs and the platform was a stainless-steel fence, which ran from the floor to the ceiling and separated the teacher from the “trainees”.
Two sports fields were available for activities. However, during the winter, there were periods of up to three or four months when we wouldn’t go outside a single day, with everyone holed up in the rooms. As there was basically no actual infrastructure for learning skills, they’d just pick out some young people who were good at Mandarin and relegate it to them – having those “trainees” who knew makeup teach makeup, those who knew baking teach how to bake cakes, etc.
The “teaching materials” were materials specifically compiled for the “education-and-training centers”, aimed at teaching Mandarin and the law, within pinyin accompanying the characters. The content of the Mandarin language materials naturally extolled the Wicked Party and praised those who followed the Wicked Party; the law materials had content that was mainly related to the national security law, the marriage law, the religious administration regulations, and so on.
7) Punishment
There was a period when rooms that maintained good cleanliness or good study habits would be rewarded on a weekly basis – the reward being a measly piece of fruit or a serving of yogurt for each person. But such occasions were few and far between. The punishments, on the other hand, were very frightening.
First and foremost were solitary-confinement cells and the tiger chair. Those labeled as “offenders” would spend seven days straight in the tiger chair inside a solitary-confinement cell, their calves swelling up to the knee, with a bun and a cup of water for each of the three daily meals. The so-called “offenses” were nothing more than arguing with the management staff over unfair treatment, writing “reactionary poems” in Uyghur, or having emotional breakdowns and shouting in the middle of the night. Every place had solitary-confinement cells, but the most bizarre thing was that in the hospital, men and women were confined together in a single room, which included using the toilet without any privacy.
There was also a form of punishment that really obliterated you. I heard that before I arrived, there was a “trainee” who had been caught performing “namaz” (a ritual in Islam) in the room by the surveillance cameras, which led to everyone involved being punished. Personally, I experienced a situation where the people in the neighboring room, not having been given nail clippers for a long time, stole some from the bathroom cabinet to use and were caught, with everyone involved being punished here as well. The method of punishment in both of these two instances involved making everyone wear handcuffs and shackles in the 工 shape (where the handcuffs are connected to the shackles, forcing the person to bend at the waist), and having them walk back and forth in the corridor for a long time, for everyone to see. One person, after having walked a few rounds, fainted right there in the corridor.
There was also an even more terrifying form of punishment where rooms would be scored collectively, and the room that ranked last would be subjected to punishment for an entire week. Meals would be reduced to a bun and cabbage soup, three times a day, with just one bun per person and no seconds allowed. The cabbage soup was just cabbage and water, without any salt even, let alone oil. Such a diet could be bearable for a meal or two, but sustaining this for a week was very difficult. Moreover, after the meals, while others would study, you’d have to participate in extremely harsh training.
Sometimes, the room leader, under the pretext of needing salt for cleaning and disinfection, could ask the doctor for some salt and then secretly add a bit to everyone’s cabbage soup during meals. Some individuals would pretend to have a cold to get some medicinal powder from the doctor, which contained sugar and could be mixed into their buns to up the sugar intake. I remember there was a small underage girl in the room who, because of low blood sugar, fainted while standing at attention after breakfast.
8) Lack
First, there was the lack of toilet paper. At the beginning, the amount of toilet paper distributed per person was very limited, with one or two packs distributed to each room every one or two days for everyone to share, which averaged to about one or two sheets per person per day. Whether you used it for eating, going to the bathroom, or wiping your nose and mouth, that’s all you had. Some people would save the paper they had wiped their mouths with after meals and use it again in the toilet. If someone caught a cold and had a runny nose, they would just use the towel, and then quickly give it a wash while washing up in the evening. Later, the toilet paper situation improved, but occasionally there would still be long periods without it being distributed, leading to another penury.
There was a lack of toothpaste. Normally, each room would be issued one or two tubes of toothpaste on a regular schedule. However, there were a few times when, for reasons unknown, they didn’t distribute any for a long period. Initially, everyone borrowed from the neighboring room, but soon they ran out as well, and before long there wasn’t a trace of toothpaste left in the entire corridor. So, there was no choice but to brush our teeth with plain water for a few days. The toothbrushes were those short-handled ones used in pre-trial detention centers.
There was also a lack of water. For a period, there was something wrong with the water-supply system, and only a trickle of water would come out of the tap during wash-up time. So, they’d prepare water in advance, with each person allotted a cup (200-300 milliliters) for brushing one’s teeth, washing one’s face, and washing one’s hands.
Because of each room being overcrowded, there was little in the way of guarantees when it came to washing clothes, showering, and even the basic wash-up. The first time the bed sheets and covers were changed was eight months after the “trainees” having moved in, by which time there were several rooms whose “trainees” had developed head lice. At a “school” under the jurisdiction of the government in the 21st century! Consequently, they collected everyone’s clothes and soaked them in disinfectant, and made the “trainees” from the affected rooms shower with sulfur soap for three days straight. The impact of this incident was far worse for them than the harm caused by the lice themselves. Because this was an ethnic group who prided itself on cleanliness, and finding lice on one’s body was the worst disgrace imaginable.
There was the lack of contact with family. I remember how in 2017 I could basically have a phone call with my family once a month. There were two telephones, and the class head would help the “trainees” dial the number. Once connected, the “trainee” held one receiver while the class head held the other, monitoring and recording the conversation on the spot. But these times didn’t last long. Starting in around March 2018, I wouldn’t get to speak with my family over the phone at all anymore. Meeting in person was even more out of the question. Even prison was a more humane place than this.
V. Some unforgettable scenes
1) At the first place, there was no running water, and we weren’t allowed to store water in the room. As such, washing hands before meals or after using the toilet was impossible.
2) According to what they said, boiled water was supposed to be provided five times a day, but this was rarely honored. The most extreme was when they distributed half a cup of boiled water at 11 AM, and then no more until 9:30 PM, when the doctor came to check on everyone. During this period, there wasn’t even access to cold water. Later, when there were more people and there wasn’t enough boiled water to go around, we couldn’t even get half a cup per person per serving.
3) On a day at the end of June 2018, the weather was scorching hot. After we got up at three in the afternoon, they were supposed to distribute boiled water but didn’t, with us being dragged out to the sports field to do training under the blazing sun, which we got through with much difficulty. As we were doing the roll call to go back to the dormitory, an elderly Uyghur lady kept getting the count wrong. The more she got it wrong, the more nervous she got and the more mistakes she made. The instructor got angry, thinking she was doing it on purpose, and ordered the patrol leader to come administer more “training” – which meant duck walks and bunny hops until past six o’clock, when we were finally able to go back. By then, we were hot, thirsty, tired, and sweaty. In the end, when we returned to the dormitory, there was also a security inspection to turn everything upside down. At that moment, it truly felt like a living hell.
4) Once, via surveillance, they saw that someone had written a “reactionary poem” in Uyghur, prompting them to make a big fuss and confiscate everyone’s books, not leaving a single piece of paper. Then, going room by room, they had everyone strip naked in front of the police one by one, to be checked for hidden notes. I saw people in the inspection line who kept eating paper – they probably didn’t know exactly what was prohibited and had no other way to get rid of it, leaving no other choice but to swallow it. That time, a room that was typically known for “performing well” was essentially taken to solitary confinement in its entirety. It was the hottest time of the year, and they had to sit for seven days straight without any means to wash up. The suffering during that period is something that only they would truly understand.
5) At the hospital, where the conditions were relatively the best, people were frequently reassigned between the hospital and the factory, with the factory management also being somewhat lax. As a result, it happened that a male patient was found bringing cigarettes in while going through the hospital security check, leading to everyone in the wards where cigarettes were found being handcuffed and shackled and held in a large and empty meeting room. Each person was given a mat to sleep on, on the floor, and this lasted for at least three days. The women were also implicated – not only were their wards inspected, but each person also had to strip naked in front of the police and squat down to pass the check. Whenever this happened, someone would go to the police and say: “There are men behind the surveillance monitors. Aren’t you afraid that they will see?”
6) The most painful thing there was that you didn’t know when you could go home, because the standards for going home simply didn’t exist. It wasn’t like in prison, where you’re allowed to go once your sentence is completed. Because of the unchanging day-to-day life, including during holidays and festivals, one elderly Uyghur woman cried and said that she felt like she had been born in this place.
7) A person with depression argued with the police and was handcuffed in a cruciform position to the fencing for several days and nights. Initially, she was handed over to a male police officer for punishment. That officer said that he had a reputation for treating men and women equally, and punishing them the same way. True to his word, he used an electric prod on this female “trainee”, mainly targeting near the perineum area. Six months later, that female “trainee” still had scars on her perineum.
8) There was an ethnic minority “trainee” who used to be a school teacher. When she first arrived, she was petrified. Later, she talked about how sudden everything had been. After taking her to the police station for questioning in the middle of the night, they dragged her to the “education-and-training center”. After changing clothes, she walked by several rooms and then arrived here, thinking that she had died and ended up in a small compartment of the underworld.
9) There was a period when they played red songs before breakfast to lighten the sullen mood. The frenzied and militant atmosphere triggered a relapse in a “trainee” who had previously suffered from mental illness. Accompanying the red song, she began to scream out, one cry after another, which made for a chilling scene.
10) When we moved from Place No. 1 to Place No. 2, it was more terrifying than a prison transfer. Everyone was handcuffed behind the back, then put onto a bus, shackled at the seats, and wore black hoods. Only after we arrived at the destination did we all have our restraints removed.
11) At the hospital, following the last transfer, the men and women were in the same building, but had separate times for activities on the sports field. One day, just as we had descended, we heard a man upstairs heartbreakingly scream “apa” (meaning “mom” in Uyghur). It turned out that he saw from the window that his mother had also been transferred here. His mother downstairs, realizing that it was her son, burst into tears and nearly fainted. Another time, in the middle of the night, we heard someone crying and banging on the main gate – it must have been a mother outside wanting to see her child. Easier said than done.
12) My family pulled all sorts of strings to see me. The authorities prepared a family visitation room in a nearby residential complex, which was newly decorated and with various fruits and nuts on the table, as well as tea. Compared with our daily life, it was like heaven and earth.
13) There was a period when they did “provisional sentences” – in other words, telling you the crime you’d be charged with and how many years you’d get if your case went to court, but ultimately with the government being lenient and sending you here to “study” instead. The charges were numerous and ludicrous.
For example, there was a woman whose husband had been imprisoned for theft before they got married. After his release, they traveled with a friend who had also served time, the two families traveling together. When checking into the rooms, the woman and this friend checked in as staying in the same room, even though in reality she must have stayed in the same room as her husband. That was the reason for why she was taken. When it came time to give her a provisional sentence, she’d be sentenced several times on a variety of charges, with the charge different each time. Once, she was charged with harboring a criminal, with it claimed that she had harbored her husband when he committed his crime, even though they weren’t even yet married at that time.
The majority of those who really had nothing to be charged with just said that they hadn’t cooperated with the neighborhood administration in its tasks. For another person, it was for having downloaded firewall-circumvention software onto her computer. She defended herself: “I didn’t know it was firewall-circumvention software, and I never used it.” To which the police officer provisionally sentencing her said: “That’s not okay either. It’s like circumventing a wall in real life, and having already propped up the ladder [梯子, slang for VPN].”
14) Creating files, erasing traces. By around June 2019, most young people had been arranged to work at the factories (mainly garment factories) that were converted from the “education-and-training centers”. At this time, it was arranged to create files for all of the individuals who remained. Apart from the notices for attending the “study classes” being official and signed by the neighborhood administration secretary, the neighborhood administration police, and the political and legal affairs commissions of the various districts, very much was fabricated. The information concerning the “trainees”, or the information concerning the “trainees’” families, could be filled in however one wished.
But at the same time, the erasing of traces began. This involved eliminating all the traces that those who had gone to factories had left behind at the “training centers”, with large amounts of paper materials, used clothes, and bedding being burned. These kinds of operations have continued. What we saw with our own eyes was in 2019, at the so-called “Loving Heart Hospital”. First, a large pit was dug with an excavator, then many of those plastic bags sold at the market for packing luggage were brought in, bulging with stuff, and thrown into the pit, to burn for a long while. Public security vehicles were on the scene to supervise the process. Such things were taking place everywhere. The computers of the relevant staff members likely underwent trace removal as well.
15) Their guilty conscience. Originally, there were large posters with pictures promoting “deradicalization” on the edge of the sports field at the first place. Around the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018, all of these were suddenly torn down overnight. I heard that they were afraid of people abroad seeing them via satellites. By the end of 2018, when I was at the second place, they started to deal with the stuff inside too. One night, they suddenly tore down all the copies of the Deradicalization Regulations, which at the time had to be posted in every room in both Uyghur and Chinese. I’m guessing that the external pressure on their “education-and-training centers” must have been growing then.
During the time that I stayed at the workshop place, there must have been a reporter coming to do interviews. Because they had declared to the outside world how good the conditions of the “education-and-training centers” were – with TVs, AC, and showers that were all up to standard – while in reality our room had nothing of the sort, they tried to temporarily install a TV next to the bed area. Save that there wasn’t even a single outlet in the entire room to plug it into.
While at the Loving Heart Hospital, there was one night when they suddenly brought in a group of “trainees”, providing them with new bedding and personal items on the spot, and sticking them in the empty beds of each room. I heard that they had come from a factory, but they themselves didn’t know why they were sent here. In the end, they were taken away again at noon the next day, not having even stayed at the Loving Heart Hospital for twenty-four hours. Such is the mysterious behavior of those with a guilty conscience.
I heard that whenever foreign media visited, they’d always take those at the clothing factories who had been taken in for reasons other than “religious extremism” (drug use and fighting, for example) and temporarily lock them in a conference room, worried that they might say more than they’re supposed to.
16) Getting sunlight. From December 2017 to March 2018, and from November 2018 to March 2019, no one went outside, not even once, staying in our rooms the entire time. During these periods, I had one opportunity to see my family (such visits only being possible through gifts and connections). When I stepped out the door, I was so dazzled by the sunlight that I almost fell over. I remember a drug user telling me how she had been to pre-trial detention centers, education-through-labor centers, and drug rehabilitation centers, and how none of those detention facilities had been this harsh.
17) Written pledges. In May 2019, when a batch of people were to return home, they were required to write a pledge. The content of the pledge was extensive, including commitments to not come into contact with “religious extremist” things, to abide by laws and neighborhood-administration regulations, and so on. However, what struck me most was that after returning home, you couldn’t drive motor vehicles, use electronic devices, or leave the jurisdiction of the neighborhood, all of which was utterly absurd.
18) Cutting of hair. Because it is a tradition for Uyghur women to have long hair, the vast majority of women, no matter their age, keep their hair long. Perhaps because they (the “education-and-training center”) found washing long hair a big waste of shampoo, shower time, and hot water (since there wasn’t enough hot water), there was one time when they forced everyone to have their hair cut. That day, armed police with guns were stationed on both sides of the corridor, watching as the trainees to have their hair cut stood in line. If anyone cried or made a ruckus, they were first hit with an electric prod.
Speaking of armed police… While at the “study class”, whenever we did outdoor activities inside the tall fenced area, there would always be a police officer with a gun patrolling outside the fence. Later, after returning home, I heard more than once that the armed police in there were actually soldiers who had been sent in following a change of uniform.
19) Some people passed away while in “study class”. One was a female “trainee” with the surname Liao. Liao Shuiying, I think. According to someone who was in the same room with her, she likely died of heart disease. There was also a trainee surnamed Luo (Luo Binbin), who only weighed around thirty-something kilograms. She suffered a sudden cerebral infarction and was rushed to the hospital. The next day, all of her personal belongings were taken away. We just assumed that she had died, but later heard that her family spent hundreds of thousands, and that she miraculously survived.
20) Some wonderful people and events. An Uyghur girl was hired for the position of a patrol leader. After working for a month or two, she felt really sorry for us and couldn’t bear to continue, and resigned. Two other leaders, knowing that we were chronically malnourished, would secretly slip us a piece of candy where the cameras couldn’t see. There was also a Han People’s police officer who was very kind. She would let the “trainees” help with haircuts or mopping the floor, then secretly give them a packet of rock candy to share with everyone, boosting their sugar intake. These acts, filled with the radiance of humanity, could only be done in secret here.
VI. After returning home
After returning home, everyone was placed under control and supervision as part of the “focus population”. Initially, for the first month, there were daily meetings with the neighborhood authorities. After one month, this changed to meeting once a week, and then about six months later, it changed to once a month, to continue for five years. If traveling out of town, no sooner would you book the ticket or arrive at the destination than you’d get a call from them, asking you to write a request for leave. It was also common to be inspected on the train.
Actually, apart from the individuals concerned and their families, other people aren’t really aware of this “focus population” management. Even so, those people who have both experienced the Cultural Revolution and gone through this “stability maintenance” say that the atmosphere of terror created by this “stability maintenance” is more frightening than the Cultural Revolution was.
The above is just what I saw in the “study class”. This “study class” was already in operation before I arrived, and it continued to exist after I went home. How could they possibly deny something involving so many people and going on for such a long time?!