Published: 12 October 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Witnesses took the stand at a tribunal convened in London to describe what they endured in the camps China has built to incarcerate the Uighurs; a report is due in December
LONDON – “It was one of the darkest, most tragic days of my life,” the witness stated, referring to her arrest in March 2018. “There were already four big buses at the gate when I arrived. Some people had children, and police officers took the children away by force and took them to another bus to be sent somewhere else. As soon as you enter, there are two armed guards standing on the left and right. They have a machine that scans people.
“In another room, there were two police officers who searched everyone, and they ripped off all their clothes. An old woman was standing in front of me, about 70 years old. They tore off her skirt, leaving only her underwear. She tried to cover her breasts, the policeman did not allow her to do that…
“Her hijab was also viciously ripped off. I can’t forget that scene to this day. I didn’t have time to take my earrings off, they pulled them off so viciously that my ears started bleeding.”
The speaker was Tursunay Ziyawudun, 43. She gave her testimony in June before a “people’s tribunal” in London that was established last year to investigate the policy that the Chinese regime has been carrying out for years against citizens of the Uyghur minority in the region of Xinjiang.
These serious accusations against China are being addressed not in the International Criminal Court in The Hague or at the United Nations in New York, but in a medium-size auditorium in London. The tribunal held two four-day hearings this year, in June and in September, and plans to present its conclusions in December.
FULL STORY Witness, hundreds reveal the atrocities of China's concentration camps (Haaretz)
Photo: Witness Omir Bakali, who demonstrated his treatment by his Chinese captors, at last June’s set of hearings (Tolga Akmen/AFP)
