“Three times a week, prison guards sprinkled pepper gas on us”: Bitter Winter starts an exclusive series of testimonies from ethnic Kazakhs persecuted in China.
by Serikzhan Bilash and Karima Abdrakhmova*
*Galman Kochiigit, Bekzat Maxutkan, Gulzhan Toktassyn, Galym Rakizhan, and Tilek Niyazbek cooperated with the interviews and in preparing this series.
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Bitter Winter presents a unique collection of stories of ethnic Kazakhs who suffered in the prisons and the dreaded transformation through education camps in Xinjiang and their relatives. All our stories come from interviews we recorded on video in Kazakhstan, and we have full biographical data of the interviewees. Taken together, these voices from the horror form a choir that counters any possible Chinese propaganda. We hope the democratic world will listen.
Anykbek Turdazhan is one of the victims of the CCP genocide in Xinjiang. He moved to Kazakhstan in 2011 with his family, a wife and two children. His wife engaged in trade between the two countries, China and Kazakhstan. She had managed to get a residence permission of Kazakhstan before.
In 2017 his wife’s passport was confiscated by the Chinese border guards. She called her husband Anykbek to come to her place in Koksu village, the first agricultural farm in Dörbiljin county (Emin county), Xinjiang.
That’s why Anykbek had to go back to China on October 1, 2017. After crossing the Chinese border, his passport was confiscated, and he was taken to Dörbiljin police station to be questioned. From there, he was transferred to the local police department in the village. There, he was interrogated again. He was allowed to meet his wife at her relatives’ place. After two months of being under police surveillance, on December 15, 2017, at midnight he was arrested by five policemen. They put handcuffs and shackles on him, put a black bag on his head, and took him to prison.
He was examined at a local hospital and sent to Kampu prison in Dorbiljin county. He was tortured there, and had to share a cell with another twenty prisoners. The food was only steamed bread with watery rice and cabbage soup.
In three months, he was sent to Chuarlu prison and one of his cell mate was sent there, too. Chuarlu prison is the largest prison in Dorbiljin county.
After another two months, he was transferred to Riliygunsy prison, also in Dorbiljin county. There he was forced to learn Chinese Communist Party songs. It was difficult to survive in prison. The most awful thing was the fact that three times a week, prison guards sprinkled pepper gas on the inmates. It was breathtaking, and it developed a choking cough from that. It also affected his vision, as his eyes were weakened from the constant spraying of pepper gas.
Suddenly, there was a state inspection in the prison. During the interrogation, Anykbek told them that he was accused of being three months late in crossing the border. He was to cross the border every six months. He was accused of being a two-faced person and a traitor to the motherland (China).
Anykbek was released from prison in 2018, on November 11. But he was blacklisted, and was not allowed to leave his village. He was in a situation of house arrest for six months. Only on September 4, 2019, he was allowed to cross the border to Kazakhstan.
He demands compensation from the Chinese government to compensate his moral and financial damages and the violation of his basic human rights and dignity.
*Karima Abdrakhmanova was born in 1962 in Taraz, Kazakhstan, and lives in Petropavlosk, in North Kazakhstan. She graduated in 1985 from Kyrgyz Pedagogical Women Institute and is a teacher of English language.
Serikzhan Bilash is a leading human rights activist in Kazakhstan. He was repeatedly harassed and persecuted for his campaigns exposing the horrific condition of ethnic Kazakhs and others detained in Xinjiang’s transformation through education camps.
