A police chief in China has been detained after he voiced his concerns about the communist country’s mass incarceration of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region.
Himit Qari, the police chief of Ucha township in Kuchar county, was detained after criticizing the country’s detention of his fellow Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that Qari made his remarks about 1.5 million minorities held for having “strong religious views” while “attending a gathering at a friend’s home early this year.” Several weeks later, the 45-year-old was “summoned by the Kuchar County Public Security Bureau’s disciplinary office for questioning, taken to a prison amid a further investigation into his case, and accused of ‘revealing state secrets,’” a source told the outlet.
At the same gathering, Qari apparently suggested “many people died” at one of China’s concentration camps in Ucha, where he worked as a security guard.
China had, until this year, denied that the country was running internment camps. It finally acknowledged the camps, claiming they were educational facilities to tamp down radicalism and promote a better life.
RFA reported that “a Han Chinese staff member at a crematorium in Kuchar county told RFA that the Aksu government was investing in ‘burial management centers’ in the prefecture and had earmarked funding to expand the size of the facility where he was employed.” From RFA:
Among the ethnic minority corpses brought to his crematorium were those who had died in internment camps, he said at the time, adding that he and other staff members “have no right to get involved in these matters, and we have no knowledge of any details of the arrangements—only the officials know.”
As The Daily Wire previously reported, a woman who was once forced to teach detainees in one of the camps described her time inside.
“There were almost 20 people in a room of 16 square meters [172 sq. ft.],” she said. “There were cameras in their rooms, too, and also in the corridor. Each room had a plastic bucket for a toilet. Every prisoner was given two minutes a day to use the toilet, and the bucket was emptied only once a day. If it filled up, you had to wait until the next day. The prisoners wore uniforms and their heads were shaved. Their hands and feet were shackled all day, except when they had to write. Even in sleep they were shackled, and they were required to sleep on their right side — anyone who turned over was punished.”
She said prisoners — young men and women — were routinely sexually assaulted. She said detainees were tortured for almost any alleged offense, and said she had once been “punished” because a new detainee recognized her as part of her ethnic group and hugged her. Though the woman didn’t reciprocate, she was punished. In another example, the woman said a young woman was raped in front of dozens of other detainees, and anyone who reacted to the rape was punished.
She also said detainees were given pills allegedly to combat the flu and AIDS, but these pills — according to camp rumors — made men sterile and stopped women from getting periods. They believed those in charge of the camps were running human experiments.