• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
  • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / Testimonies China

Severely Ill Uyghur Woman Held in Camp, Not Allowed to See Doctor

08/07/2018Li Zaili |

educations camp windows
An Uyghur couple, both with medical problems, from Kumul city in Xinjiang, were arrested and detained in “transformation through education camps,” leaving their three children behind. Bitter Winter interviewed one of them.

On June 18, 2018, the police arrested Guli, a severely ill Muslim woman, and her husband while they were raising the national flag on the farm. Guli was sent to a camp for female detainees in Yizhou District; her husband was transferred to Huangtian Farm.

Before the arrest, the family made a living by doing small business. Guli was suffering from an autoimmune disease, lupus, and her condition has become quite severe before her detention: she needed to go for check-ups four times a year. Sometimes, a single course of treatment would cost tens of thousands of yuan. Her husband also has health issues – he has tuberculosis.

The couple has three children: 19-year-old daughter Azhuo is the eldest, she has a younger sister, 14, and a 5-year-old brother. Since the parents were taken away, there is no one to take care of them.

Guli’s eldest daughter, Azhuo, said, “Before my mother was arrested, she called me and said that her illness had relapsed, and her hands had become swollen. I was taking the college entrance exams at the time. We were planning to bring my mom to see a doctor after Eid al-Fitr (the Feast of Breaking the Fast), but on the third day of the festival, my mom and dad were taken away.”

Azhuo is worried that the conditions in the camp will worsen her mother’s health. “There is a lot of daily military training and other physical activity. My mother’s health is poor, and she cannot exercise a lot,” said Azhou worryingly. “I have submitted applications to several institutions asking them to let my mother leave to see a doctor, but the officials in the autonomous region said “no,” there is nothing they can do now.”

Azhuo started crying and continued, “The treatment for my mother’s illness cannot be delayed. If it is, she will not be saved. If my brother finds out about this, it will be unbearable for him. If they don’t come back, I don’t know what we’ll do. When my mom and dad were arrested, my younger brother was attending school. We didn’t tell him. We just told him that our mom went to see the doctor. After our parents were arrested, I hear my sister cry alone sometimes. Without the parents, my brother became very unsettled, he sleeps badly at night and shouts or cries, my sister and I cannot sleep as well.”

When asked why she thought her parents had been arrested, Azhuo said, “My dad practiced daily namāz (the obligatory religious duty for Muslims to worship five times a day), but my mom didn’t know much about religion. Before her arrest, my mom told me that almost all of her brothers and sisters, as well as friends with whom she studied, had been sent to camps. She said she didn’t know when she would be taken away. My parents didn’t do anything; they were just sometimes studying (Islam) together.”

(All names are pseudonyms)

Reported by Li Zaili

Tagged With: Muslim Uyghurs, Re-Education Camps

Li Zaili Profile picture
Li Zaili

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • A Uyghur Prisoner’s Escape: Changing the Course of Death

    A Uyghur Prisoner’s Escape: Changing the Course of Death

  • Xi Jinping’s Third Term: A Uyghur View

    Xi Jinping’s Third Term: A Uyghur View

  • Celebrating Uyghur National Day at Amsterdam’s Dam Square

    Celebrating Uyghur National Day at Amsterdam’s Dam Square

  • Thailand Mistreats Refugees from China

    Thailand Mistreats Refugees from China

Keep Reading

  • Protests Against the Urumqi Fire Extend to Amsterdam
    Protests Against the Urumqi Fire Extend to Amsterdam

    The “lonely Uyghur protester” gathered some 300 Uyghur and Cantonese to demonstrate in Dam Square.

  • 20th Congress: Why Did Xi Jinping Not Even Mention the Uyghurs?
    20th Congress: Why Did Xi Jinping Not Even Mention the Uyghurs?

    It was not a sign that the Uyghur issue is not in Xi’s mind. Rather, it confirmed that the Uyghur genocide continues, and Xi fears accountability.

  • UK: China Accused of a Wide Range of Abuses in the House of Lords
    UK: China Accused of a Wide Range of Abuses in the House of Lords

    China’s human rights record comes under the spotlight again as peers debate the atrocities.

  • Innocents Abroad: The World Muslim Communities Council Hails Xinjiang as a Religious Liberty Paradise
    Innocents Abroad: The World Muslim Communities Council Hails Xinjiang as a Religious Liberty Paradise

    TWMCC is just another fake NGO, made up of bureaucrats from Arab governments who need to humor China for their own purposes.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back by Gulfiye Y
  • Zhanargul Zhumatai: “Help Me, I Just Want to Leave China” by Ruth Ingram
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 1. The Aesthetic Mind by Massimo Introvigne
  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents by Wang Zhipeng
  • Japan Religious Donations Law. 4. The Return of Brainwashing by Massimo Introvigne
  • Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated by Gladys Kwok
  • The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet by Marco Respinti
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 3. Art as Communication by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 4. Art and Illustration by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 5. Professionals vs. Amateurs by Massimo Introvigne

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

Instant Exclusive News
Instant Exclusive News

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

Follow us

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY