3.2 INTERROGATIONS AT POLICE STATIONS

The Xinjiang Victims Database documents the testimonies of former internment camp detainees, their families, and other witnesses.266 While data collected by the project do not necessarily represent the interned population as a whole, analysis of several thousand testimonies shows that the most commonly stated reasons for detention are related to religion, going abroad, having contact with the outside world, and the behaviour of the detainees’ relatives. Additionally, an analysis of the official reasons for which over 1,500 individuals were detained indicates that other common reasons include allegations of “separatism”, violating birth policies, and “extremism”, as well as other vague justifications, such being untrustworthy or disturbing public order.267

GUILT BY ASSOCIATION

Analysed together with the Aksu and Karakax lists and with other testimonial and documentary evidence gathered by journalists, the testimonial evidence Amnesty International has gathered demonstrates that members of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang are often detained on the basis of what can only be considered “guilt by association”. Many were interned as a result of their relationships, or perceived or alleged relationships, with family, friends, or community members – many, if not most, of whom were themselves not guilty of any internationally recognized criminal offence. Many former detainees were detained for having a family member who was considered suspicious or untrustworthy or who was accused of being an “extremist”, “separatist”, or “terrorist”, or for contacts with others facing these accusations.268

Amnesty International interviewed several former residents of Xinjiang who believe their own behaviour was the reason their family members were detained. Shamil went abroad and did not return on time. He told Amnesty [he suspects] his father was sent to a camp because of his decision.269 Kuanish, who also did not return from abroad on time, said the police called him from his house in China and had his son ask him to return from abroad and tell him the family would be sent to the camps if he did not. Since then, he has not been able to communicate with his family. “I do not know where my children are,” Kuanish said.270 Azhar, a former detainee, told Amnesty that his father was taken to an internment camp because his father “let” him go abroad after he was released. “When my father was about to be detained, the police called me and said come [back to China]… They said we will let your father go if you come back.”271

In addition to often being grounds for detention, guilt by association is now a pervasive theme in the life of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and a tool for the social control that the Chinese authorities impose on the population. As illustrated in a variety of ways throughout this report, the behaviour of members of ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang affects their family, their community, and the group as a whole. Credible threats against family members are used to control or modify behaviour.

The majority of former detainees Amnesty International interviewed were interrogated at police stations before being sent to a camp.272 A minority were sent directly to the camps without being interrogated. Most of the interrogations focused on what the person had purportedly been detained for. Interrogations usually lasted several hours. A few detainees reported being extorted during the interrogations, saying they were told that if they paid the police a bribe they would not be sent to a camp.273

266 Xinjiang Victims Database, https://shahit.biz/eng/#home 267 Xinjiang Victims Database, https://shahit.biz/eng/#stats 268 Amnesty International interviews. 269 Amnesty International interview. 270 Amnesty International interview. 271 Amnesty International interview. 272 Amnesty International interviews. 273 Amnesty International interviews.

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The content of the interrogations in police stations was very similar

A man being interrogated in a police station before being to interrogations former detainees reported going through inside the sent to an internment camp. camps and after their release. Many former detainees said they were asked the same questions over and over again by different government officials during multiple interrogations over the course of months and even years while in detention.274

Many detainees were tortured or otherwise ill-treated during the interrogations in police stations before being transferred to the camps.275 Interrogations and torture were often carried out by members of the domestic security police, known as Guobao276; sometimes these acts were also carried out by local police. Former detainees were often interrogated in “tiger chairs” – steel chairs with affixed leg irons and handcuffs that restrain the body, often in painful positions, to an extent that it is essentially immobile.277 Some detainees were hooded and shackled during interrogations.278

Kanat, who spent a year in the camps for visiting Kazakhstan, said he was interrogated for several hours while immobilized in a tiger chair: “I was seated on a metal chair. Hands were cuffed. I was interrogated. My feet were also cuffed… It’s a metal chair that contains a board that your hands are

274 Amnesty International interviews 275 Amnesty International interviews. 276 The National Security Protection Unit, a secretive unit responsible for domestic political threats. 277 Amnesty International interviews. 278 Amnesty International interviews.

58 “LIKE WE WERE ENEMIES IN A WAR” CHINA’S MASS INTERNMENT, TORTURE AND PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG Amnesty International