Leaked Chinese police information is giving Uyghurs solutions about lacking relations

A smaller subset of this information — referred to as the Xinjiang Police Files — was revealed final May. Further examination of the information then revealed their full extent, uncovering roughly 830,000 people throughout 11,477 paperwork and hundreds of pictures.

The police information had been hacked and leaked by an nameless particular person, then obtained by Adrian Zenz, a director of China Studies on the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a US-based non-profit. Zenz and his crew spent months creating the search software, which they hope will empower the Uyghur diaspora with concrete details about their relations, after years of separation and silence.

Using the new on-line search software, Mahaz News tracked down the information for 22 people after trialing it among the many Uyghur diaspora throughout three continents.

For the primary time, exiled Uyghurs had been in a position to see official Chinese paperwork in regards to the destiny of their relations, together with why they had been detained — and in some circumstances how they died. On seeing the information, some described a way of empowerment; others felt guilt that their worst fears had been confirmed.

The Chinese authorities has by no means denied the legitimacy of the information, however state-run news outlet The Global Times not too long ago described Zenz as a “rumor monger,” and known as his evaluation of the information “disinformation.”

The new web site represents the biggest information set ever made publicly obtainable on Xinjiang. It permits folks to seek for a whole bunch of hundreds of people within the uncooked information, utilizing their Chinese ID card numbers.

The Uyghur inhabitants of Xinjiang is round 11 million, together with round 4 million folks from different Turkic ethnic minorities. As such, the information possible represents solely the tip of the iceberg.

Zenz mentioned “tens of thousands” of individuals had been listed as “detained” within the paperwork. The youngest was aged simply 15.

Mahaz News has despatched an in depth request for remark to the Chinese authorities in regards to the information, and the households highlighted on this article, however has not obtained a response.

After the primary set of knowledge was revealed in May, the Chinese authorities didn’t reply to particular questions in regards to the information, however the Chinese embassy in Washington DC did situation an announcement claiming Xinjiang residents lived a “safe, happy and fulfilling life,” which it mentioned supplied a “powerful response to all sorts of lies and disinformation on Xinjiang.”

At a press convention in late December, Xinjiang officers additionally claimed that “most” of the folks recognized within the leaked pictures had been “living a normal life,” with out specifying the destiny of the remaining. A girl who appeared within the information additionally claimed that she had “never been detained,” however had graduated from “a vocational college in June 2022,” simply weeks after the paperwork had been revealed.

Over the previous 4 years, Mahaz News has gathered testimonies from dozens of abroad Uyghurs and different ethnic minorities, which included allegations of torture and rape contained in the camp system. Mahaz News additionally spoke to these overseas desperately in search of details about their family members.

Such data is normally extremely exhausting for relations to seek out. A complicated system of collective punishment threatens these in Xinjiang with detention if their households overseas even attempt to make a telephone name.

“The black hole is the most terrifying thing,” Zenz mentioned. “And that’s part of why the Chinese state creates this black hole. It’s the most terrifying thing that can be done. That you don’t even know the fate of a loved one, are they alive or dead.”

From totally different corners of the globe, the search software enabled three Uyghur households to seek out detailed official information on their relations for the primary time.

For Mamatjan Juma, who lives simply south of Washington DC in Virginia, the information supplied “immense” details about his household, but additionally confirmed his worst fears — that they had been discovered “guilty by association” with him.

As the deputy director for the Uyghur service of US-funded news group Radio Free Asia, Juma has been highlighting the scenario in Xinjiang for 16 years. He left China for the US in 2003, after being chosen for an educational fellowship with the Ford Foundation.

“They called me a wanted terrorist, to be deported back to China,” Juma mentioned. “My relatives (are) also demonized because of me, and then (they’re) not described as human beings.”

The information present that 29 members of Juma’s speedy and prolonged household had been detained — and in some circumstances sentenced to lengthy jail phrases — resulting from their connections to him.

Juma discovered that each one three of his brothers had been imprisoned, one in all whom was even pictured in a police mugshot.

He described his youthful brother, Eysajan Juma, as “jubilant, very gregarious,” a sociable and likable one who was liked deeply, regardless of making “a lot of mistakes.” But Juma may now not see these acquainted traits in his brother’s eyes.

“I saw a defeated person,” Juma mentioned. “He lost any of his emotions.”

In the information, Juma additionally found the small print of his father’s dying, which was described as the results of “various kinds of complications.”

“It was a very heartbreaking situation,” Juma mentioned, by tears. “He was so proud of us, (but) we weren’t able to be with him at the time… it was very painful.”

Despite the disturbing revelations, Juma mentioned he felt a way of “relief” from seeing the information, which was “empowering” after years of not figuring out.

“The bitterness of desperation dissipates,” he mentioned. “The darkness of not knowing also disappears.”

But Juma continues to be coming to phrases with the enormity of the influence his departure from his homeland had on his household.

“Survivor’s guilt is very painful,” Juma mentioned. “They are tied to you and they are persecuted; it’s not an easy feeling to digest.”

“It haunts you every day.”

Abduweli Ayup, a Uyghur scholar dwelling in exile in Norway, doesn’t really feel any reduction from looking out by the police information — solely grief.

In reality, he needs he had by no means seen them.

Ayup, who ran a Uyghur language college in Kashgar, fled Xinjiang in August 2015 after spending time in jail as a political prisoner, the place he advised Mahaz News he confronted torture and gang rape.

He had already heard that his brother and sister — together with a number of others — had been focused due to him, however the search database gave him the primary official affirmation.

“This time the government document told me that yes, it is related to you, and it is your fault,” Ayup mentioned, including that he now feels “guilty and responsible.”

His sister, who taught geography at a highschool for 15 years, was listed within the police information as one in all 15,563 “blacklisted” folks.

“I have learned that my younger sister, she got arrested,” Ayup mentioned. “The reason is, she (is) accused of (being a) ‘double-faced government official,’ and she (was) blacklisted because of me.”

Uyghurs working in authorities jobs in Xinjiang whereas persevering with to follow their cultural beliefs had been usually accused of being “two-faced,” Ayup mentioned, categorized as “traitors, not 100% loyal to the government.”

When she first used the brand new search software, Marhaba Yakub Salay, a Uyghur dwelling in Adelaide, Australia, discovered police information for 2 relations she didn’t anticipate: her younger niece and nephew, who had been aged simply 15 and 12 when the information had been made in 2017.

The nephew was labeled as a “Category 2” individual on the blacklist, described as a “highly suspicious accomplice” in “public security and terrorism cases.”

The information on Salay’s niece and nephew instructed they’d traveled to not less than one in all 26 “suspicious” international locations which included Syria and Afghanistan. Salay mentioned that was not true — they’d solely ever traveled outdoors China to go on vacation to Malaysia.

“This is insane… this is terrible,” Salay mentioned as she learn by her nephew’s file. “He’s turning 18 in a couple of months’ time. Are they going to arrest him?”

Salay’s sister Mayila Yakufu — the mom of the youngsters — was sentenced to six.5 years in jail on the finish of 2020, after she had spent a number of years in different camps.

Yakufu is accused of financing terrorism after she wired cash to Salay and their mother and father in 2013, so they might purchase a home in Australia — which the household has proved with banking information. Mayila and Marhaba’s brother left Xinjiang in 1998, and later died in an accident in Australia in 2007 — however his ID card was nonetheless cited as a suspicious connection to the youngsters.

“I think the suspicion level (Category 2) is about my late brother, but they tried to connect my 12-year-(old) nephew with my brother, who passed away 15 years ago,” Salay mentioned. “These two people, they have never met each other.”

The extension of “guilt by association” to kids displays the paranoia which the Chinese state holds towards the Uyghur inhabitants, in accordance with Zenz.

“The state considers the entire family to be tainted,” Zenz mentioned. “And I think that’s consistent with how Xi Jinping and other officials (in) internal speeches have described Islam like a virus of the mind that infects people.”

As the households look by these information, their intuition is to seek for logic and causes for what occurred to their family members. But they discover solely confusion.

“Guilt by association can work quite extensively, and the logic behind it is quite fuzzy and the reach is pervasive,” Zenz mentioned.

This “fuzzy” logic was defined by a former Xinjiang police officer turned whistleblower, who advised Mahaz News in 2021 the thought had been to detain Uyghurs en masse first, and discover causes for the arrests later.

The ex-detective — who glided by the title Jiang — mentioned that 900,000 Uyghurs had been rounded up in a single yr in Xinjiang, although “none” of them had dedicated any crimes. He admitted torturing inmates throughout interrogations, including that a few of his colleagues acted like “psychopaths” to extract confessions to numerous crimes.

The US authorities has accused China of committing genocide in Xinjiang — and a report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that China could have carried out crimes in opposition to humanity. China has vigorously denied these allegations.

With this new deluge of leaked information, the researchers hope so as to add to the rising physique of proof on the insurance policies inside Xinjiang — and so they hope that offering widespread entry to the information will drive renewed efforts by governments and human rights organizations to carry China accountable.

“I sincerely hope that this is going to inspire some hope among the Uyghurs,” Zenz mentioned.

For Uyghur households around the globe, determined to be reunited, every one of many 830,000 names represents a liked one.

“Beautiful souls are being destroyed behind those numbers,” Mamatjan Juma mentioned. “There is suffering without any reason.”

Correction: This story was up to date to interchange and proper a photograph of Abduweli Ayup’s niece.

Have you managed to trace down your family members utilizing the brand new search software? Please contact UyghurHouseholds@Mahaz News.com in case you’d prefer to share your tales.