She told Bitter Winter and the world she was in grave danger of being arrested. She was right.
by Ruth Ingram
The moment Zhanargul was dreading has finally come. A tense two-month standoff with local police was broken last Friday night when officers forced their way into her elderly mother’s home where she had taken refuge, and took her away. She has not been seen or heard from since.
Bitter Winter has followed ethnic Kazakh Zhanargul Zhumatai’s story since her SOS, relayed through the exiled Kazakh human rights group Atajurt over New Year, calling for international support over her imminent arrest. Desperate for her plight to be raised with the highest authorities, she risked all in contacting the world’s media to talk about her two-year extra-legal detention and subsequent harassment by Chinese security services for her defense of Kazakh herders, denied rightful compensation following state land grabs and loss of grazing land.
In a bold move, speaking to Bitter Winter from her mother’s home in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang region, Zhanargul described the merciless hounding and threats of re-arrest unless she admitted herself to a psychiatric hospital.
Bitter Winter stayed in contact with Zhanargul and three weeks later wrote the following report. Her fate still hung in the balance, but there were grounds for tentative optimism with the offer of a visa from Kazakhstan where she hoped to flee, and documents that all being well would enable her to apply for a Chinese passport. It seemed as if she was on a conveyor belt of sorts that would allow her to leave the country.
Many other would-be exiles however have fallen at this fence. They are often told to report to the local police to sign papers, but are arrested immediately on arrival and never seen again. To avoid this happening at least in the early stages, Zhanargul’s older sister was dispatched to chase up numerous petty officials for signatures and permissions. With no choice however for the final stage, Zhanargul was forced to present all the documents herself. Surprisingly this went well and she was told to report on January 30th for her passport.
In the meantime she has been subject to increased scrutiny. Police and their high visibility vehicles have been stationed around her apartment and she has received several threatening phone calls and social media messages. One caller told her that she would be killed by the security services. Her family members have been harassed and told to tell her to keep quiet. But she told Bitter Winter that she would never give up.
She continued to press for Kazakh herders’ rights, “We are herders, we are peaceful,” she had said. “We call for the Central Supervision Committee to come to our place to see for themselves… and to react to the breaches of law and rules and thus make sure that the Kazakh herders can establish a just and peaceful life for themselves.”
For herself she had said, “I am a human being, I have a soul. I want to live. I want to spend life like a normal person.”
According to voice recordings heard by Bitter Winter and posted by Kazakh human rights group Atajurt, the last few days have been peppered with increasingly brusque and persistent calls from the local police, both Uyghur and Chinese. “Are you at home? Are you there? What are you doing?” They demanded. “Will you open the door?” They insisted. She told them that they had no right to harass her like this and that she was entitled to a private life.
They could not be silenced. The calls persisted.
On Friday morning, Zhanargul had no choice but to make a rare visit to her elderly mother’s home in the foothills of the South Mountains. The local police having tracked her there arrived quickly and under the pretext of needing to check something with her at the police station, took her away for a preliminary interrogation. They brought her home later, but were soon back a few hours later to collect her for good. They confiscated her phone and lead her away with no time to gather belongings.
This was the last time anyone has had contact with her. All communications with Atajurt have been severed, the family having deleted all records of the group from their phone. Bitter Winter’s calls to her sister went unanswered.
Serikzhan Bilash, director of Atajurt, speaking to Bitter Winter said that recently great play has been made in the Chinese media of busloads of Kazakhs returning to their homeland. Social media has been awash with videos of family reunions after years of silence. “The Chinese government is trying to make people think that everything is back to normal in Xinjiang,” he said. “On the surface everyone is smiling and hugging relatives, but this is a lie.” He pointed out that cases like Zhanargul were commonplace. “Life is not back to normal,” he said. “There are still hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, and Kazakhs too, in camps, prisons and in forced labor. Many have died and many have completely disappeared.”
He pleaded with the international community to continue to press the Chinese government for justice; for Zhanargul and for all those illegally detained.
“The world must open its eyes to what is going on,” he urged.
But while the world decides what to do, Zhanargul has disappeared into the depths of the Chinese so-called “justice“ system, and all her family can do is wait.
