Leaked Chinese police data is giving Uyghurs answers about missing family members

A smaller subset of this knowledge — often called the Xinjiang Police Files — was revealed final May. Further examination of the recordsdata then revealed their full extent, uncovering roughly 830,000 people throughout 11,477 paperwork and hundreds of images.

The police recordsdata have 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 group spent months creating the search software, which they hope will empower the Uyghur diaspora with concrete details about their family, after years of separation and silence.

Using the brand new on-line search software, Act Daily 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 have been capable of see official Chinese paperwork in regards to the destiny of their family, together with why they have been detained — and in some circumstances how they died. On seeing the recordsdata, 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 recordsdata, however state-run news outlet The Global Times lately described Zenz as a “rumor monger,” and referred to as his evaluation of the recordsdata “disinformation.”

The new web site represents the biggest knowledge set ever made publicly accessible on Xinjiang. It permits individuals to seek for lots of of hundreds of people within the uncooked recordsdata, utilizing their Chinese ID card numbers.

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

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

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

After the primary set of information was revealed in May, the Chinese authorities didn’t reply to particular questions in regards to the recordsdata, however the Chinese embassy in Washington DC did subject 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 individuals recognized within the leaked images have been “living a normal life,” with out specifying the destiny of the remainder. A girl who appeared within the recordsdata additionally claimed that she had “never been detained,” however had graduated from “a vocational college in June 2022,” simply weeks after the paperwork have been revealed.

Over the previous 4 years, Act Daily 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. Act Daily News additionally spoke to these overseas desperately in search of details about their family members.

Such data is often extremely exhausting for family to search out. A classy 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 completely different corners of the globe, the search software enabled three Uyghur households to search out detailed official knowledge on their family for the primary time.

For Mamatjan Juma, who lives simply south of Washington DC in Virginia, the recordsdata supplied “immense” details about his household, but in addition confirmed his worst fears — that they have 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 a tutorial 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 recordsdata present that 29 members of Juma’s rapid and prolonged household had been detained — and in some circumstances sentenced to lengthy jail phrases — on account of their connections to him.

Juma realized that each one three of his brothers have been imprisoned, certainly one of whom was even pictured in a police mugshot.

He described his youthful brother, Eysajan Juma, as “jubilant, very gregarious,” a sociable and likable one that was beloved deeply, regardless of making “a lot of mistakes.” But Juma might 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 recordsdata, Juma additionally found the main points of his father’s demise, which was described as the results of “various kinds of complications.”

“It was a very heartbreaking situation,” Juma mentioned, by means of 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 recordsdata, which was “empowering” after years of not understanding.

“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 by means of the police recordsdata — solely grief.

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

Ayup, who ran a Uyghur language faculty in Kashgar, fled Xinjiang in August 2015 after spending time in jail as a political prisoner, the place he instructed Act Daily 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 recordsdata as certainly one of 15,563 “blacklisted” individuals.

“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 observe their cultural beliefs have been typically 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 family she didn’t count on: her younger niece and nephew, who have been aged simply 15 and 12 when the recordsdata have 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 recordsdata on Salay’s niece and nephew urged they’d traveled to no less than certainly one of 26 “suspicious” international locations which included Syria and Afghanistan. Salay mentioned that was not true — they’d solely ever traveled exterior China to go on vacation to Malaysia.

“This is insane… this is terrible,” Salay mentioned as she learn by means of 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 dad and mom 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 line 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 means of these recordsdata, 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 instructed Act Daily 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 identify Jiang — mentioned that 900,000 Uyghurs have been rounded up in a single 12 months 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 might have carried out crimes in opposition to humanity. China has vigorously denied these allegations.

With this new deluge of leaked knowledge, 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 recordsdata 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 all over the world, determined to be reunited, every one of many 830,000 names represents a beloved 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 exchange 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@Act Daily News.com in the event you’d wish to share your tales.