Online Activism in the Uyghur Diaspora with Halmurat Uyghur
Xinjiang has been a news story for several years, but these days it’s dominating the headlines even more. This week, The New Yorker put out an extensive profile of a woman who escaped from the government crackdown, and major brands like H&M are being shut out of the Chinese economy after pledging to stop sourcing cotton from Xinjiang.
Today’s guest is Xinjiang native Halmurat Uyghur, who joins us from Finland before a night shift at the hospital. Halmurat is a doctor and Uyghur rights activist who founded UyghurAid.
You originally set out to study medicine to break the pattern of political involvement in your family, going back generations. How did you become interested in working on Uyghur rights?
I didn’t have any political ambitions until 2017. I was sent to one of the concentration camps when my father told me the local authorities sent my mother to the facilities.
My mom had a major operation a year before her detention. I want to make sure she’s still alive and I was afraid my father could be lying to me because that happened before when my grandfather passed away. It was kept a secret from me for over a year until I started my investigation by calling people in my network who still live in the region.
Then I find out it’s something bigger, more serious, something I never thought could happen to me or to my people in that area. I contacted my friends or classmates who are abroad and I learned something massive: thousands or possibly more people could be detained in those camps.
I asked almost everyone how someone ended up in those so-called study facilities, and it’s not normal. My mother speaks Mandarin Chinese, she doesn’t need to learn the language. She used to work for Turpan Daily Newspaper, which is a CCP or Chinese Communist Party propaganda organization. My mom is retired from the Turpan Daily Newspaper. We are not typical people that China wanted to target because my family didn’t have any political ambition. We never wanted to become activists because back to my great-grandfather, we tried to avoid being targeted. Avoiding politics is the only way to keep our families safe.
My great-grandfather was a soldier of the Second Republican Army. In the 1940s they went up against the Chinese Republican Army or Chinese Republican militants. My great-grandfather was involved with the resistance movement. After some kind of vaccination, he lost his life. We suspect maybe because of his history, or the things he’d done before, the new government was afraid, so it retaliated. During the Cultural Revolution, my grandpa was taken to one of the labor camps for I don’t know how many years. So all this background teaches us to not get involved in politics. Unfortunately, after my mother’s detention, I have no choice. I had to stand up now to say what they’re doing is wrong.
Why does the Chinese government send and detain people like your mother or father to these camps?
To be honest, it’s difficult to answer this because I’m still trying to find the answer. There is controversy about how many people are being sent to concentration camps. The most common answer is 1 million to 3 million. There are few different camps. They are all prisons. Before prison is the controls, which is like a detention center. And before that, so-called relocation centers or study facilities. But in fact, it’s a concentration camp.
I know from my interviews with others and other information that I gathered, there is a scoring system. They give you points according to your behavior, your history, and your family and friends network. If someone in your family or friend circle is a political prisoner or someone who went abroad, they automatically lost points. If you list in foreign countries, for example, countries like Turkey, Malaysia, or even some European countries, they take out points and accumulate numbers, then they analyze whether you are dangerous or not.
Are some members of the Uyghur community sent to camps or arrested because they had a beard or were practicing their religion?
If you look at my pattern, you cannot categorize them within this category because both of my parents are retired government officers: my father used to work for local administration and my mother was working for the Turpan Daily Newspaper, which is a Party propaganda machine. I never saw them practicing religion. They never taught me anything about religion. You cannot say they are devoted Muslims because he never practiced any religion. The only thing is they’ve been to foreign countries and their sons studied abroad and migrated.
What kind of restrictions do members of the Uyghur diaspora face abroad?
When my grandfather passed away, my family kept this secret for at least a year. At that time I was studying and my economic situation was not good. That is one of the main reasons why my parents didn’t want to let me know about my grandfather’s status.
But when my grandmother passed away, I wasn’t able to go back because the Chinese government didn’t issue my visa. As a Finnish citizen, and as a Chinese national before that, I didn’t have restrictions until this happened, like the first day they detained my mother in 2017. In the beginning, I tried to contact local authorities to make sure if my mom was being sent to these study facilities, by this I mean concentration camps, then I want to know when she will be released.
I contacted local police and community servants of Turpan where my parents live. They were so rude to me. They verbally abused me. I haven’t contacted the Chinese Embassy after they sent my father to another concentration camp. The week after that, I learned that my grandma was in a critical situation in a hospital. I wanted to go see her and to know why my parents are being sent to those study facilities. The local embassy recommended I do not go there.
I’m no longer a Chinese citizen, so I wasn’t able to go. I cannot contact my parents until their release on December 21, 2018, after my mom being detained for 17 months, and my father detained for about 11 months.
Their passports have been confiscated by local authorities. That’s not unique. Almost all Uyghurs’ passports are being confiscated so they cannot go abroad. I cannot go back to see them. After they detained my parents, I’ve been so active as an activist. I launched different campaigns, and I’m already blacklisted by the Chinese authorities.
What was it like when you were finally able to talk to your parents over the phone? What is their status now?
I’m the only son and I love my parents. Sometimes it’s difficult to explain to people how close because you always keep in contact. My parents are more like my friends; we talk about everything. I asked their opinions.
There is a lot of separation, but we always keep in contact. I even talk to them about my girlfriends. When it’s my birthday, I call my mom and my father to give thanks to them for bringing me to this world. We celebrate together although we are not in the same place. Virtually and spiritually, we gather and celebrate together.
When I call them, the first thing he told me was, “Hey, don’t worry, we all are fine, we are safe. We are so grateful that the party organized this great opportunity to study our country’s language and history.” I was shocked.
Then, I learned that they cannot use the internet and mobile phones for some time. Now, I can contact them. But I refuse to use WeChat, so that’s why I don’t directly contact them. I contact them via my wife. I continued my activism; I have nothing to lose. I don’t know if my parents are still alive because I cannot contact them. I just want to make sure they will be safe or they will be released, or even if I lost them.
If you talk to your parents, there are certain topics you cannot talk about. Of course, you cannot talk about politics, even about the price of the food and other things. You cannot talk about the weather. Is it hot? Or is it warm? Is it snowing or windy? You cannot even talk about your other realities. The family reunion is the oldest kind of thing we cannot talk about. That’s painful and I’m the only son. In our culture, I’m supposed to take care of them, but I can’t now, and it’s very painful.
Given the risk of speaking out and surveillance, what motivated you to continue to work on Uyghur rights?
I had a dilemma after my parents were released. Should I continue? Or should I disappear? Can I be ignorant again, like before my parents were detained? I did different kinds of campaigns. One of these campaigns is the serial demonstration. I went to the major cities of the Western European countries. After that end, I went to different countries with significant Uyghur diaspora communities. I talked to Uyghurs; I tried to explain to them that if we can’t speak up against the Chinese government’s brutality, their crackdown on our family, then we cannot win this struggle. If you want our family to be released, we had to let the world know. We have to make the international community put pressure on the Chinese government.
During my travel to two different countries to meet with hundreds of different Uyghurs, I heard so many stories — the tragedies, so it broke my heart. There are so many stories that make you think What is responsibility? My parents’ story, although it’s not as painful as others, you cannot compare pain. There are so many kinds of stories that people don’t know.
People live in countries where they don’t have a residence permit, their passports have expired, and now the working permit, so they are living in poverty. At the same time, they are under a tremendous amount of psychological pressure from their boss, the difficulties that they are facing, and in countries that they are dwelling or living in now, and from the concentration camp threat coming from China. They could be deported back to China at any time if they did anything wrong if the government of that country is not happy about them.
But I, as a Finnish national, can travel to over 170 countries. I speak the language and I have a good connection. After I saw those people, I see this responsibility. I never felt that connected with my people because my parents used to work for the government and we lived in different places than other Uyghurs. We had neighbors but it was a Han Chinese–majority community and I went to a bilingual school. Then I went to Inner China to study medicine.
I was almost separated from my community. I have never lived with my community after I went to middle school. After I talked to people, I learned so much about their pain. I started to feel this responsibility to do something to help them because we all belong to one ethnic group or one nation, but I have this privilege. But I don’t want to sacrifice my parents. And that’s how this dilemma started.
What strategies have you used to encourage other people to speak out, despite the risk?
I made up my mind to give testimonies and speak up against this brutality. Then I learned that social media is a good platform to start with. I uploaded a ton of videos then all of a sudden, I started to gain popularity, they started to share my videos and send me messages.
I start to gain many followers on Facebook. On Facebook, you can have up to 5000 friends, but you can have unlimited followers. I have over 15,000 followers; all of a sudden, people start to send me friend requests and I became popular among Uyghurs. I started to look at how active we were on social media and among those who talked about concentration camps.
I’m not necessarily the first person, but among those who speak up, I find that there were no social media campaigns with hashtags. The hashtag movements were not popular among YouTubers or Uyghurs were not aware of that. So I educated them by targeting different social media campaigns.
Have you noticed any common themes among the people who participated in this campaign? What have you seen from these testimonies?
I wasn’t able to check every testimony. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, who were keeping silent before, uploaded videos or pictures of their relatives who are in detention.
They’re from all over, not only Europe but also in America and Turkey. Then some people from Central Asia and even from Japan and other Asian countries. Those who live there secretly uploaded some pictures, not necessarily their own, but relatives’ or friends’ pictures on social media. After China was rebuked then responded, people worried. It’s like China was winning this media war and fighting back. So what can we do? People are worrying at the time. Thanks to other campaigns we previously initiated, people are educated on how to take part in this kind of campaign. That is the secret of the success of this campaign: the right time, the right moment, the right situation, and the right social desire.
What kind of vision do you have for UyghurAid and your campaign moving forward?
People start to understand how we ended up here. We need to find answers. How you define this nation, or how you define liberty, or how you define human dignity?
What kind of fight will I join? We need to make a decision together. So far, we mainly focus on helping Uyghurs create a platform, a network to help them contact different international organizations or the media. We are playing the role of a bridge between the media, or sometimes with other organizations, and the local community.
If you ask me, Will you join a political movement, or more like the independence movement? I would ask you, What is your definition of the independence movement? “What can be the solution?” is a very difficult question. Some say we cannot live with Chinese people because so many things have happened. We blame the Chinese people or the Chinese population. But in the end, the Chinese government made those decisions, and those people who work in the system to make it happen are not the majority of Chinese.
Still, there are also the police and government officials. So we need to hold the system accountable. I hope they will change this genocidal policy toward Uyghurs; ease and stop their crackdown on Uyghurs. Uyghurs, at least abroad, desire to have an independent state; there is division on this matter. My question is, There are a million to 3 million people in these concentration camps; what would happen after their release? What people have experienced will have an impact on their behaviors, psychologically, as well. Imagine the millions of people walking down the street, how PTSD is, and it’s easy to be mobilized by different opinions.
I’m afraid the ethnic tension is high and China is one of the most important economic engines. If we could describe it as an internal war, that will have a great impact on the entire global economy and the global relationships. The real solution for me is that I helped my people, especially my parents and relatives with their dignity, lives, and their freedom.
Tune in to Episode #29, contact us at dividedfamiliespodcast@gmail.com and follow us at @DividedFamiliesPodcast.