cuffed to. And there is an iron base that you put your legs inside. [The interrogation started late at night,] I was questioned until 3am.”279 Many former detainees told Amnesty they were held in crowded conditions before being sent to the camps. Nurislam, who said he was held in a detention centre280 for three weeks before being transferred to a camp, told Amnesty he was forced to stand in a small, crowded cell with 50 other inmates all day. “We don’t even put cows in that terrible condition… We slept side by side touching each other,” he said.281 Saken also reported being held in a detention centre for several weeks before being transferred to a camp. He told Amnesty his cell was very cold and extraordinarily crowded, with nearly 60 men living in a space that he estimated to be 30m2:
There was a large bed in the cell; people used to sit on the edge of it, but there was not enough space. We let the elderly people sit on the bed… [The rest of us] had no place to sit or sleep… We slept in turns [because there was not enough space]. The floor was cold and wet. I slept for [weeks] on the floor with no mattress or carpet… It was [winter] already. Our clothes were very thin. It was very cold… And it smelled horrible in the cell. Saken also told Amnesty he could hear female detainees in the cells on the floor above him screaming and crying at night. “After they started crying, we started crying too, because we were worried about them.”282 Journalists and other organizations have reported approximately a dozen similar accounts of torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings, overcrowded conditions, and sleep deprivation in police stations and detention centres.283
3.3 MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS AND BIOMETRIC DATA COLLECTION Before being sent to a camp, nearly all detainees were subjected to a medical examination. Bakyt, a former detainee who worked at a hospital where some people were examined before they were sent to the camps, witnessed large numbers of detainees being brought to the hospital, as well as part of the medical examination process.
In [the city I lived in] there were four hospitals – infection, military, traditional, and regular. In 2017 they all started being used for people sent to re-education camps… At first it was Uyghurs and Hui. They were everyday people, but police treated them as serious criminals. There were six guards per person [brought for a medical examination]. Their eyes were covered, [their heads] hooded, and their hands were cuffed [when they
279 Amnesty International interview. 280 A few detainees were held detention facilities other than police stations before being sent to camps, including in “detention centers”. 281 Amnesty International interview. 282 Amnesty International interview. 283 See Human Rights Watch, “Eradicating Ideological Viruses: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims”, 9 September 2018, www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs; See also Xinjiang Victims Database entries: “Baqytali Nur”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=7075; “Erbaqyt Otarbai”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=453; “Merdan Ghappar”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=12952; “Tursynbek Qabi”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=277; “Omer Bekri”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=3623; “Abduweli Ayup”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=4616; “Abduhebir Rejep”, shahit. biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=10553; “Kong Yuanfeng”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=5279; “Qaster Musahan”, shahit.biz/eng/ viewentry.php?entryno=5419; “Mihrigul Tursun”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=2110; “Orynbek Koksebek”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry. php?entryno=1725; “Memettursun Omer”, shahit.biz/eng/viewentry.php?entryno=5282
“LIKE WE WERE ENEMIES IN A WAR” CHINA’S MASS INTERNMENT, TORTURE AND PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG Amnesty International
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