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No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs
*Shortlisted for the Moore Prize on Human Rights Literature*
A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel that lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
In recent years, the People’s Republic of China has rounded up as many as three million Uyghurs, placing them in what it calls “reeducation camps,” facilities most of the world identifies as concentration camps. There, the genocide and enslavement of the Uyghur people are ongoing. The tactics employed are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, but the results are far more insidious because of the technology used, most of it stolen from Silicon Valley. In the words of Turkel, “Communist China has created an open prison-like environment through the most intrusive surveillance state that the world has ever known while committing genocide and enslaving the Uyghurs on the world’s watch.”
As a human rights attorney and Uyghur activist who now serves on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Turkel tells his personal story to help explain the urgency and scope of the Uyghur crisis. Born in 1970 in a reeducation camp, he was lucky enough to survive and eventually make his way to the US, where he became the first Uyghur to receive an American law degree. Since then, he has worked as a prominent lawyer, activist, and spokesperson for his people and advocated strong policy responses from the liberal democracies to address atrocity crimes against his people.
The Uyghur crisis is turning into the greatest human rights crisis of the twenty-first century, a systematic cleansing of an entire race of people in the millions. Part Anne Frank and Hannah Arendt, No Escape shares Turkel’s personal story while drawing back the curtain on the historically unprecedented and increasing threat from China.
A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel that lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
In recent years, the People’s Republic of China has rounded up as many as three million Uyghurs, placing them in what it calls “reeducation camps,” facilities most of the world identifies as concentration camps. There, the genocide and enslavement of the Uyghur people are ongoing. The tactics employed are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, but the results are far more insidious because of the technology used, most of it stolen from Silicon Valley. In the words of Turkel, “Communist China has created an open prison-like environment through the most intrusive surveillance state that the world has ever known while committing genocide and enslaving the Uyghurs on the world’s watch.”
As a human rights attorney and Uyghur activist who now serves on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, Turkel tells his personal story to help explain the urgency and scope of the Uyghur crisis. Born in 1970 in a reeducation camp, he was lucky enough to survive and eventually make his way to the US, where he became the first Uyghur to receive an American law degree. Since then, he has worked as a prominent lawyer, activist, and spokesperson for his people and advocated strong policy responses from the liberal democracies to address atrocity crimes against his people.
The Uyghur crisis is turning into the greatest human rights crisis of the twenty-first century, a systematic cleansing of an entire race of people in the millions. Part Anne Frank and Hannah Arendt, No Escape shares Turkel’s personal story while drawing back the curtain on the historically unprecedented and increasing threat from China.
10 pages, Audiobook
Published May 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 98 reviews
May 5, 2022
holy shit, I hated reading this book and also think everyone should read this book. truly terrifying shit happening in China.
April 7, 2023
You have probably heard about the protests over the 2022 Olympics in China due to the government's treatment of the Uyghur people. No Escape is an extremely well written and eminently readable book about the plight of these people in China. It is also a prophetic look into the methods a government can use to surveil and control people it considers dangerous. To that end, it would appeal to both the right and left of the political spectrum.
In fact, after reading the book I wonder if even by leaving this positive review I would be somehow censored or punished if I ever returned to China.
Each personal story and each deep look into the way the government has worked to suppress this people group is heart-wrenching, but the stories also lead you to think deeply about all kinds of issues.
There is so much to glean from this book - it will help you re-think and refine your views of China and the entire world order. It gives ideas of what we can do as a nation and as individuals to help out peoples in similar situations, which I was grateful for so you were not left just feeling hopeless. But it is also such a compelling read that you will be glad you read it.
UPDATE 4/7/23: He testified in Congress about TikTok and its ability to gather information for the CCP from US users
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...
In fact, after reading the book I wonder if even by leaving this positive review I would be somehow censored or punished if I ever returned to China.
Each personal story and each deep look into the way the government has worked to suppress this people group is heart-wrenching, but the stories also lead you to think deeply about all kinds of issues.
There is so much to glean from this book - it will help you re-think and refine your views of China and the entire world order. It gives ideas of what we can do as a nation and as individuals to help out peoples in similar situations, which I was grateful for so you were not left just feeling hopeless. But it is also such a compelling read that you will be glad you read it.
UPDATE 4/7/23: He testified in Congress about TikTok and its ability to gather information for the CCP from US users
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...
September 29, 2022
Everyone needs to know that genocide against the Uyghur people is happening in today's world. Yet, Disney has filmed a movie in the very province where concentration camps are operating and the Olympics was allowed to be help in China. Turkel himself was born in one of the "re-education" camps before being able to move to America. The information about what is happening to these people is heartbreaking and we cannot turn a blind eye to the atrocities being committed.
Had the narrative focused solely on the Uyghur experience, this would have been a five star read had it not devolved into a criticism of the Republican parry, President Trump and full of misinformation about January 6th. For a book that was so critical about Chinese propaganda to then pander to Denocratic false narratives was disheartening and made me question the rest of the facts presented. I'm not sure how anyone can endure persecution and not be able to see through the Democratic party's manipulation and empty virtue signaling.
Had the narrative focused solely on the Uyghur experience, this would have been a five star read had it not devolved into a criticism of the Republican parry, President Trump and full of misinformation about January 6th. For a book that was so critical about Chinese propaganda to then pander to Denocratic false narratives was disheartening and made me question the rest of the facts presented. I'm not sure how anyone can endure persecution and not be able to see through the Democratic party's manipulation and empty virtue signaling.
June 4, 2022
This memoir expertly documents the unimaginable persecution of an entire ethnic race. It is hard-hitting and in equal parts, both infuriating and an eye-opening revelation.
It records the atrocities openly inflicted on a large population with impunity, and no drastic global backlash just because of the economic might of the oppressor.
TW: there is evidence of Uyghur women being forced to undergo extremely late-term abortions, take pills, and have operations to prevent them from ever having children. Sexual abuse and assault are rife in these prisons where they are surveilled every moment of every day and where even the slightest acknowledgement of a fellow prisoner can have severe repercussions.
Those that are “permitted” to live in their own homes must accept a Han visitor/spy to live with them under the “Becoming Family” program, eat their food, and even share their beds. For women to refuse unwarranted advances from these strange men would be considered a sign of modesty from secretly practicing their religion and hence, a cause for being sent away to a re-education camp. Just like having a prayer mat at home or refusing alcohol would lead to.
The Uyghurs are being erased from history, through the demolitions of their properties and even their cemeteries. They are being wiped out from the face of this earth, by being tortured and murdered but only after they have been used as slave labourers in the production of cheap goods to be exported, and often after a willing buyer is found to purchase their profitable organs.
There is so much content in this book but there aren’t enough words for me to stress its importance, but I request everyone who can, please read it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“What is happening…simply defies categorization & historical parallels…because it both differs from previous atrocities, ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against humanity and because it has an overlap of elements of so many of the famous ones.”
It records the atrocities openly inflicted on a large population with impunity, and no drastic global backlash just because of the economic might of the oppressor.
TW: there is evidence of Uyghur women being forced to undergo extremely late-term abortions, take pills, and have operations to prevent them from ever having children. Sexual abuse and assault are rife in these prisons where they are surveilled every moment of every day and where even the slightest acknowledgement of a fellow prisoner can have severe repercussions.
Those that are “permitted” to live in their own homes must accept a Han visitor/spy to live with them under the “Becoming Family” program, eat their food, and even share their beds. For women to refuse unwarranted advances from these strange men would be considered a sign of modesty from secretly practicing their religion and hence, a cause for being sent away to a re-education camp. Just like having a prayer mat at home or refusing alcohol would lead to.
The Uyghurs are being erased from history, through the demolitions of their properties and even their cemeteries. They are being wiped out from the face of this earth, by being tortured and murdered but only after they have been used as slave labourers in the production of cheap goods to be exported, and often after a willing buyer is found to purchase their profitable organs.
There is so much content in this book but there aren’t enough words for me to stress its importance, but I request everyone who can, please read it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“What is happening…simply defies categorization & historical parallels…because it both differs from previous atrocities, ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against humanity and because it has an overlap of elements of so many of the famous ones.”
May 22, 2022
First, a disclaimer. I know the author of this book and briefly worked with him. As such, I came into this book more familiar with Nury Turkel's life and the plight of the Uyghur people in China. Even so, I found myself shocked and horrified by Nury's account. Nury weaves his life story with an overview of China's persecution of Uyghurs, including his public advocacy in the U.S. The international media have reported widely on China's attempts to wipe out Uyghur culture and to detain millions of Uyghurs. Nury makes the situation personal. He introduces readers to some of the victims in China, as well as some of the heroes who have fought to warn the world about this cultural genocide.
After the Holocaust, the West told itself that we'd "never again" let such mass atrocities occur. However, preventing mass atrocities requires leadership and bravery. Nury and the people whose stories he shares in "No Escape" are the modern Pastor Niemöllers of our era. It's important that we listen to them.
[Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.]
After the Holocaust, the West told itself that we'd "never again" let such mass atrocities occur. However, preventing mass atrocities requires leadership and bravery. Nury and the people whose stories he shares in "No Escape" are the modern Pastor Niemöllers of our era. It's important that we listen to them.
[Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.]
July 2, 2022
Exceptional Book, Dramatic Survival Read
This was quite possibly the best Uyghur survival book I have read so far.
Really enthralling, dramatic, and intense book on survival.
A really good book and an important book on the camps.
Would recommend reading the story to learn more.
Pretty important and timely read.
4.8/5
This was quite possibly the best Uyghur survival book I have read so far.
Really enthralling, dramatic, and intense book on survival.
A really good book and an important book on the camps.
Would recommend reading the story to learn more.
Pretty important and timely read.
4.8/5
June 14, 2022
Harrowing Account of Uyghurs’ Genocide
This is a hard hitting book about the Uyghur genocide in China. How it started and its continuation to this day. Pretty ugly.
This is a hard hitting book about the Uyghur genocide in China. How it started and its continuation to this day. Pretty ugly.
May 29, 2022
“No Escape” hooks you into the book and keeps you captivated until finished.
Until I read this book, I hardly knew of the Uyghurs, let alone their plight in the western part of China. The Xi Jinping described in the book sounds like a modern-day Hitler, or worse. Pure evil. It never ceases to amaze me how cruel human beings can be to other humans.
Chinese Communist Party, under Xi, has also been solidifying its presence and power in many parts of the world. It is suspected that this is being carried out by bribing heads of state and others who hold positions of influence, such as university and school boards, within affected countries. The USA is no exception.
This explains how the cultural shift in the USA, promoted by the left, has similarities to what had happened during the Cultural Revolution in China. They impose a ban on certain basic words, such as he or she, and introduce new words that we are expected to understand and use.
Worse, brainwashing — using Critical Race Theory — has been implemented in classrooms in America. Money talks.
The meanness and utterly disrespectful attitudes by those who hardly know the targets of their attacks appear to be more prevalent in secular societies. CCP bans religious practices, and those who insist, such as the Uyghurs or Falun Gong, do so at their own peril.
The objective of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under Mao Zedong was to destroy traditional culture and values and replace them with communist dogma. CCP’s method of social change has always been to galvanize youths that are easily brainwashed to do evil acts on behalf of communist leaders. Millions were murdered. Sadly, many of them even killed their own parents, only to regret such acts years later.
“No Escape” is a collection of first-hand accounts of horrific and shocking human-rights violations perpetrated by the CCP. Alas, variations of them are starting to be seen in American society. We have become cognizant of the fact that exercising freedom of speech — one of our basic constitutional rights — could even jeopardize careers with job loss. Who could have imagined that this could happen in America?
Until I read this book, I hardly knew of the Uyghurs, let alone their plight in the western part of China. The Xi Jinping described in the book sounds like a modern-day Hitler, or worse. Pure evil. It never ceases to amaze me how cruel human beings can be to other humans.
Chinese Communist Party, under Xi, has also been solidifying its presence and power in many parts of the world. It is suspected that this is being carried out by bribing heads of state and others who hold positions of influence, such as university and school boards, within affected countries. The USA is no exception.
This explains how the cultural shift in the USA, promoted by the left, has similarities to what had happened during the Cultural Revolution in China. They impose a ban on certain basic words, such as he or she, and introduce new words that we are expected to understand and use.
Worse, brainwashing — using Critical Race Theory — has been implemented in classrooms in America. Money talks.
The meanness and utterly disrespectful attitudes by those who hardly know the targets of their attacks appear to be more prevalent in secular societies. CCP bans religious practices, and those who insist, such as the Uyghurs or Falun Gong, do so at their own peril.
The objective of China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) under Mao Zedong was to destroy traditional culture and values and replace them with communist dogma. CCP’s method of social change has always been to galvanize youths that are easily brainwashed to do evil acts on behalf of communist leaders. Millions were murdered. Sadly, many of them even killed their own parents, only to regret such acts years later.
“No Escape” is a collection of first-hand accounts of horrific and shocking human-rights violations perpetrated by the CCP. Alas, variations of them are starting to be seen in American society. We have become cognizant of the fact that exercising freedom of speech — one of our basic constitutional rights — could even jeopardize careers with job loss. Who could have imagined that this could happen in America?
October 12, 2022
Prison camps where people enter, but may not leave, slave labor, rape, torture, forced sterilization, people unable to practice their religion, children removed from their families – sounds like WWII Europe, doesn’t it? It’s not. This is the genocide of the Uyghur Muslims by the Chinese Communist Party happening right now, in the present. The Uyghurs have been in China for centuries, but they are not Chinese enough for the Communist Party. Uyghurs are detained, spied on, taken to camps where women are gang raped by guards on a stage in front of an audience of other women detainees. This book was so hard to read, but once you learn something like this, it’s hard to ignore. 800,000 children removed from their families and given to Han Chinese families. The Uyghurs are losing everything – their families, their homes and valuable lands, their privacy, their language, their religion, their ability to have children, their culture. I thought the leaders of the world had finally learned something about how to treat other cultures. Soldiers and settlers in the US tried to wipe out Indigenous Peoples. Hitler and the Nazis tried to wipe out Jews. The fact that now another culture has been targeted for genocide and China is trying to keep it quiet is just sickening to me. I had no idea this was even happening until made aware of it by someone here on Goodreads. Many people in China don’t even know it’s happening. You may ask, “Well, what can we do about it?” First, read the book and learn about it. I would like to thank the Goodreads member who made me aware of the Uyghurs and author Nury Turkel for this compassionate and important book.
May 9, 2022
Wow! What an interesting, infuriating and eye-opening account of a history and current events I knew nothing about until this extremely well told account. The hardships, atrocities and mind-blowing lack of leadership on so many levels is so frustrating. The bravery of Nury Turkel to tell the story of his people and continue to fight for justice is inspiring and commendable. Highly recommend this piece of nonfiction!
Thanks to Librofm and Harlequin Audio for this #gifted audiobook. My thoughts are my own.
My reviews can also be found at www.instagram.com/justonemoorebook.
Thanks to Librofm and Harlequin Audio for this #gifted audiobook. My thoughts are my own.
My reviews can also be found at www.instagram.com/justonemoorebook.
September 20, 2022
I don't like memoirs all that much, but this book isn't really a memoir. It tells the life story of Turkel, sure, and it mentions how he fought the good fight and had his part in making the Trump administration define the atrocities happening in Xinjiang as a "genocide".
But really, the main attraction of this book is the stories of people other than Turkel. He tells of men and women who have suffered in theconcentration... ahem, re-education camps. He tells how millions of Uyghurs have to share their apartments and lives with government "siblings" - i.e. Han Chinese informants - and how they can do nothing about it. He tells of the high-tech surveillance state China has built in Tibet and Xinjiang and probably soon all over the country.
This is gruesome stuff, and even though I knew most of it already, it still feels as incredible to read about this as always. One of my friends has said "China is Nazi Germany that succeeded", and after reading this book, you can't help but kind of agree with that sentiment.
But really, the main attraction of this book is the stories of people other than Turkel. He tells of men and women who have suffered in the
This is gruesome stuff, and even though I knew most of it already, it still feels as incredible to read about this as always. One of my friends has said "China is Nazi Germany that succeeded", and after reading this book, you can't help but kind of agree with that sentiment.
July 31, 2022
Wow. This was an INCREDIBLY POWERFUL book. I was lucky enough to not only get an eARC copy of this book, but also an audio ARC of it from the publisher and libro.fm and I am so glad that I got to listen to it. It really put my icky commute into perspective. 1) I don't have anything worthy to complain about compared to what is happening in other parts of the world and 2) HOW IS THIS STILL ALLOWED TO HAPPEN?!?
*Please note* when I use the word "China" in the rest of this review, I am NOT speaking against the Chinese people, their culture or being derogatory to anything Chinese in any way. I am referring to the Chinese government/political leaders, that are in control and actively doing horrible things to the people within the borders of China, and abroad. I do not assume everyone who is Chinese is in agreement with their government and I try not to judge anyone until I get to know them.
What is happening to the Uyghurs is nothing short of genocide. Dude, to those who complain about the US Government monitoring and controlling it's citizens, read this book and understand that those in the US have NOTHING to complain about. China has taken it to a WHOLE new level. And it's terrifying. Seriously, if China is not stopped and they take over everything as they are quite obviously planning to, what the Uyghurs are going through will be what EVERYone will be experiencing. Though I am sure those in power in other governments are taking notes...
1984 and Brave New World? China: "Hold my beer."
I can go on and on about the horrors this book brings to light, but all I am going to say is read/listen to it and learn from it. Freedom is such a fragile and precious thing. Technology is a tool that can be used for good or ill and it's obvious which way China has gone with it.
5, this ought to be required reading, stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade/Hanover Square Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.
*Please note* when I use the word "China" in the rest of this review, I am NOT speaking against the Chinese people, their culture or being derogatory to anything Chinese in any way. I am referring to the Chinese government/political leaders, that are in control and actively doing horrible things to the people within the borders of China, and abroad. I do not assume everyone who is Chinese is in agreement with their government and I try not to judge anyone until I get to know them.
What is happening to the Uyghurs is nothing short of genocide. Dude, to those who complain about the US Government monitoring and controlling it's citizens, read this book and understand that those in the US have NOTHING to complain about. China has taken it to a WHOLE new level. And it's terrifying. Seriously, if China is not stopped and they take over everything as they are quite obviously planning to, what the Uyghurs are going through will be what EVERYone will be experiencing. Though I am sure those in power in other governments are taking notes...
1984 and Brave New World? China: "Hold my beer."
I can go on and on about the horrors this book brings to light, but all I am going to say is read/listen to it and learn from it. Freedom is such a fragile and precious thing. Technology is a tool that can be used for good or ill and it's obvious which way China has gone with it.
5, this ought to be required reading, stars.
My thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade/Hanover Square Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
September 4, 2022https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dCmK...
INTRODUCTION
THE MAN IN THE TIGER CHAIR
In June of 2017, a Uyghur man in his late thirties sat in
a Chinese police station, strapped into a “tiger chair.” He
was attached to the metal chair by straps that went
around his throat, wrists and ankles, so he couldn’t
move an inch. To even turn his head made it hard to
breathe. He had been sitting there for three days,
released only for brief, closely supervised bathroom
breaks.
The man knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. The
police also knew that no crime had been committed. His
“crime” was that he had a foreign passport, even
though he had been born in Xinjiang,1 the vast,
mineral-rich region in the far west of China, where the
steppes of Central Asia roll out all the way to the
steppes of Russia, which eventually merge with the plains
of Eastern Europe. When the man had come home to
visit his ailing parents, he had been automatically flagged
as suspicious by the Chinese security forces.
The police asked him a lot of questions, but they
already knew all the answers. Where had he lived? Who
had he met? Did he have any illicit contacts abroad? He
answered honestly, knowing he had nothing to hide. He
had broken no laws.
Suddenly, a printer on a nearby table sputtered to life
and started spewing out reams of paper. The men
ignored the mechanical whir at first, but the printing
didn’t stop: the machine seemed to have gone crazy.
Long minutes passed as the prisoner in the tiger chair
and his interrogators eyed the tsunami of paper tumbling
out of the device.
Eventually, one of the policemen went over and started
examining the lengthy message. He swore.
“Shit,” he said. “How the hell are we going to find all
of these people?”
We now know, through leaked official Chinese
documents, that there were twenty thousand names on
the list. That summer in 2017, Chinese police officers
managed to track down and arrest almost seventeen
thousand of the people in the course of just ten days.
The detainees—among them university professors,
doctors, musicians, athletes and writers—had no idea
why they were being rounded up.
Perhaps more shockingly, the police officers themselves
didn’t know why they were arresting so many
thousands of people. They were simply following orders
that had been pre-programmed by an artificial
intelligence algorithm.
The offenses that were listed sound almost cartoonish
to the Western ear. They ranged from “having a long
beard” to “having WhatsApp on their phone,” or “using
the front door more often than the back door” or
“reciting the Koran during a funeral.”
But there was nothing cartoonish about what happened
to those people once they had been arrested by the
Chinese authorities.
That vast roundup was the first known instance of a
computer-generated mass incarceration, and its victims
were almost all Uyghurs, the Turkic Muslim population
whose Central Asian homeland, Xinjiang—or as we call it,
East Turkistan—was handed over to Mao Zedong by
Stalin in 1949, after a very brief period of independence.
Labeling almost all Uyghurs as potential religious
extremists and a threat to the Communist Party’s
authority, the People’s Republic of China has rounded up
as many as three million of them, as well as other
Muslim ethnic groups, into what it euphemistically calls
“reeducation camps.”
These arrests are extrajudicial, based on an individual’s
race, ethnicity and religion, the same criteria used by
Nazi Germany to round up Jews and Roma. On paper,
the reason given for the arrests was “de-extremification.”
Since 9/11, China has used the Uyghurs’ Muslim faith as
an excuse to portray the population of eleven million as
potential Al Qaeda terrorists—all of them, men, women
and children.
But the real reason is this: Beijing does not consider
the Uyghurs to be “Chinese” enough. The authorities
perceive their centuries-old ethnonational identity, religion
and cultural heritage as disloyalty to the party and a
source of future political threat to the state. Uyghurs
have their own language, literature and history, formed
over thousands of years at the point where Buddhist,
Manichaeism and Muslim identities have historically
overlapped. The Communist party, under General
Secretary Xi Jinping, has tried to label anyone who tries
to oppose China’s crackdown as “separatists” or
“terrorists,” designations punishable by life imprisonment
or the death penalty, just as they did with
pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and peaceful
Buddhist monks in Tibet.
China’s main interest in Xinjiang is, however, the land.
Located on the fringes of Central Asia’s vast steppes,
the region—the largest in China, roughly the size of
Alaska—contains huge tracts of natural resources and
minerals (petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, copper, lead,
zinc) and long stretches of fertile agricultural land. In
fact, Xinjiang produces about 20 percent of the world’s
cotton supplies. To keep this supply chain going, China
has assigned “work placements”—essentially forced
labor—for Uyghurs to toil in these cotton fields, as well
as in local factories that get contracts to manufacture
goods in the West. Top brands such as Adidas, H&M
and Uniqlo have been identified as having used cotton
from Xinjiang, and the US has recently announced
human rights–linked sanctions against eleven Chinese
companies that have supplied material or parts to Apple,
Ralph Lauren, Google, HP, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss
and Muji.
For the first time since the heyday of the antebellum
South, cotton slavery is once again polluting the global
economy on an industrial scale.
Here we are in the third decade of the twentieth
century, witnessing a population’s genocide on a massive
scale. The tactics used to implement this genocide are
reminiscent of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, but on
digital steroids. Since Mao’s day, Beijing has updated its
technique with an arsenal of the latest technology, much
of it stolen from Silicon Valley and adapted to its own
malignant purposes. The decades-long struggle over its
occupation of Tibet—a cause that is largely lost in the
eyes of human rights groups—helped the Chinese refine
their tactics for suppressing an entire people. It became
efficient at eradicating culture and independence while
evoking very little protest from the world.
There is every sign that China is doing all this not just
to brush aside the Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong
Kongers, but to perfect the art of digital dictatorship, a
new kind of AI totalitarian state. Already, many of the
spying practices used en masse against the Uyghurs are
commonplace in spying on the 1.4 billion citizens of
China. Their social credit system monitors ordinary
people’s behavior using digital technology. Closed-circuit
cameras, spying on phone apps and logging credit card
information are used to determine what is known as a
person’s “social credit score,” a Black Mirror–style
grading of how worthy a citizen is. Littering, buying too
much alcohol—or too little, if you are a “suspicious”
Uyghur, Kazakh or other Turkic Muslim in Xinjiang—can
lead to a Chinese resident being denied the right to buy
a plane ticket or even to board a train. If you flee
abroad and speak up, the People’s Republic will track
you down, spy on you, harass you and vanish your
family into its prison camp system, or lean on your host
country to send you back.
China’s ability to combine this dystopian level of AI
spying with Chairman Mao–style totalitarianism is a
terrifying threat. What is even more bizarre and
unprecedented is the hundreds of thousands of Chinese
spies sent to live with Uyghur families—often sleeping
next to the family members in their cramped bedrooms.
They call themselves the “Becoming Family” program,
and the spies live in homes to report on suspicious
Muslim-related activities. Imagine if the East German Stasi
were not just spying on you, but had their spies living
inside your flat, pretending to be your family and using
your own children to spy on you. That’s where we are
in this region. Spies’ reports are fed into computers and
as a result, parents are sometimes carted off in the
middle of the night to the camps, their children treated
as orphans and sent off to their own Chinese “schools”
where they are indoctrinated in Mandarin Chinese against
their culture and their own missing parents.
As a lawyer helping Uyghurs to find refuge from this
horror, and now as a commissioner on the United
States Commission on International Religious Freedom, I
often meet with Uyghur parents who have been forced
to flee their homes without being able to take their kids
with them. Together, we lobby to get their children out.
I sit in on the most chilling video calls: desperate
mothers and fathers calling home to speak to their kids,
only to see a video image of their child sitting on the
knee of a Chinese cop. Quite often the children, who
have been brainwashed by these officers, will act coolly
toward their own parents. It’s hard to describe how
heartbreaking it is to see parents, afraid they may
never see their kids in person again, unable to connect
emotionally with their own children.
Given the vast scale of China’s persecution, why are
we not hearing more about this genocide unfolding
before our very eyes? Well, for a start, the world didn’t
know the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust until US and
other Allied troops marched into Dachau and
Bergen-Belsen in 1945. And certainly, China has banned
journalists and independent observers from being allowed
within miles of the camps (although it did allow Disney to
shoot the movie Mulan almost within sight of a number
of concentration camps).
The towns and cities of Xinjiang have been turned into
high-tech military camps, with surveillance cameras and
checkpoints everywhere. Trucks fitted with highly
sensitive listening devices snoop on casual conversations
in people’s homes, trying to pick up in private
conversations what the “Becoming Family” live-in Chinese
spies may have missed. China has created, in the words
of one Uyghur who fled to the United States after his
father vanished into the camps, “a police surveillance
state unlike any the world has ever known.”
It’s extremely difficult to get accurate information out of
Xinjiang. Some dedicated journalists have managed to
capture glimpses of life in my oppressed homeland. And
only through my own extensive links to my community
and my work as a human rights lawyer have I
managed to establish the contacts and the trust to lay
bare what is really going on.
Some of our knowledge comes from satellite images of
the sprawling camps, but a surprising amount of
photographic and video evidence comes from the
Chinese government itself. Having initially tried to deny
the existence of the camps, it changed course when
incontrovertible evidence started to seep out: Beijing
released the images to try to sanitize what they were
doing. It publishes carefully curated pictures of the
imposing buildings, of Uyghur men in blue coveralls
sitting in yards behind razor wire and with armed
guards behind them. Then it says to the world, “Look,
these are just normal work training facilities.” It puts out
pictures of little Uyghur kids, separated from their
parents in special schools where they are dressed in
traditional colorful Chinese robes—red and yellow, with
old-fashioned hats on—something not even modern
Chinese kids wear to school.
Then there are the testimonials of those who have
lived through the camps. These are Uyghurs who have
witnessed torture, waterboarding, rape and beatings. We
know about dozens of women who have testified to
undergoing forced sterilization in a camp before being
released—what we now see is a brutal but effective
effort to slash the Uyghur population. Having more than
the allotted number of two children is a common cause
for arrest among Uyghur women. There are only a
handful of individuals who’ve managed to escape from
China, and those largely because they were married to
foreign nationals whose governments offered them some
support. But even that support was often limited,
because most governments are too afraid to offend
Beijing. Some, such as Egypt’s, have even begun
deporting Uyghurs at China’s request, despite their
longstanding claims of “Muslim solidarity” when it came
to the occupied Palestinian territories.
Despite the mounting evidence of the horror unfolding,
the world continues to allow this to happen. Political and
business leaders are afraid of China’s economic clout, its
military strength and its growing diplomatic muscle. Even
as China frantically worked to cover up the full extent of
the deadly COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan—the final death
toll will probably never be known—it used its diplomatic
influence to get the World Health Organization to praise
its response as the “the most ambitious, agile and
aggressive disease containment effort in history,” while at
the same time parroting official government figures that
independent reporting has shown to be highly dubious. A
couple of years ago, China even managed to arrest the
head of Interpol, a Chinese citizen, and sentence him to
thirteen years in jail. The world just accepted it.
Now it is herding millions of its own citizens into camps,
using slave labor to bolster its economic strength,
bulldozing mosques and Muslim cemeteries in Xinjiang,
and building parking lots and theme parks where ancient
cultural monuments once stood. Leaked documents
quote Chairman Xi—who was allegedly praised by former
President Donald Trump, even as the US and China
were locked into a trade war over China’s theft of
intellectual property, and now over the abuse of the
Uyghur people—secretly calling on his minions to use the
“organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy.”
Any Chinese official who fails to show sufficient
ruthlessness in obeying orders risks ending up in jail
themselves. As the Washington Post noted, “In China,
every day is Kristallnacht.”
One truly frightening aspect of countries not denouncing
China’s action is this: they might actually want to copy
the lessons learned there. China’s burgeoning model of
capitalism without democracy will appeal to many
authoritarian rulers and will come to shape the ideological
struggle of the coming century.
Already, India is building camps that can house up to
two million Muslims in the state of Assam, people whom
it has deemed to be noncitizens even though many
were born in India or lived there for decades. It intends
to hold them there until they can be deported to
countries like Bangladesh, where India’s nationalist
government claims they belong. Worryingly, the
government intends to expand the program of mass
camps to the rest of the country.
“‘Never again?’ It’s already happening,” Anne
Applebaum wrote in the Washington Post. She is right:
What was supposed to happen “never again” is now
being carried out in China, and on an industrial scale.
The names in this book may sound strange to
Western readers; the places might seem remote and
hard to picture. But the people you will meet on these
pages are real. They are normal, everyday people like
you and I, unwillingly dragged into the horrors of
China’s newest crime against humanity.
Terror and persecution wear people down, hollow them
out. My friends say I too have aged. I can’t remember
the last time I had a full night’s sleep, because the fear
and anxiety gnaw at me in the darkness. Will I ever
see my parents again? Who will carry my parents’
casket if they die? Will we ever meet again, as I
promised them years ago? What further horrors await
my people? And this time, will the world act fast enough
to stop a genocide before it reaches its terrible conclusion?
1 Although Uyghurs refer to our homeland as East
Turkistan, for the sake of consistency and ease of
recognition I will use the official Chinese name of Xinjiang
throughout.
INTRODUCTION
THE MAN IN THE TIGER CHAIR
In June of 2017, a Uyghur man in his late thirties sat in
a Chinese police station, strapped into a “tiger chair.” He
was attached to the metal chair by straps that went
around his throat, wrists and ankles, so he couldn’t
move an inch. To even turn his head made it hard to
breathe. He had been sitting there for three days,
released only for brief, closely supervised bathroom
breaks.
The man knew he hadn’t done anything wrong. The
police also knew that no crime had been committed. His
“crime” was that he had a foreign passport, even
though he had been born in Xinjiang,1 the vast,
mineral-rich region in the far west of China, where the
steppes of Central Asia roll out all the way to the
steppes of Russia, which eventually merge with the plains
of Eastern Europe. When the man had come home to
visit his ailing parents, he had been automatically flagged
as suspicious by the Chinese security forces.
The police asked him a lot of questions, but they
already knew all the answers. Where had he lived? Who
had he met? Did he have any illicit contacts abroad? He
answered honestly, knowing he had nothing to hide. He
had broken no laws.
Suddenly, a printer on a nearby table sputtered to life
and started spewing out reams of paper. The men
ignored the mechanical whir at first, but the printing
didn’t stop: the machine seemed to have gone crazy.
Long minutes passed as the prisoner in the tiger chair
and his interrogators eyed the tsunami of paper tumbling
out of the device.
Eventually, one of the policemen went over and started
examining the lengthy message. He swore.
“Shit,” he said. “How the hell are we going to find all
of these people?”
We now know, through leaked official Chinese
documents, that there were twenty thousand names on
the list. That summer in 2017, Chinese police officers
managed to track down and arrest almost seventeen
thousand of the people in the course of just ten days.
The detainees—among them university professors,
doctors, musicians, athletes and writers—had no idea
why they were being rounded up.
Perhaps more shockingly, the police officers themselves
didn’t know why they were arresting so many
thousands of people. They were simply following orders
that had been pre-programmed by an artificial
intelligence algorithm.
The offenses that were listed sound almost cartoonish
to the Western ear. They ranged from “having a long
beard” to “having WhatsApp on their phone,” or “using
the front door more often than the back door” or
“reciting the Koran during a funeral.”
But there was nothing cartoonish about what happened
to those people once they had been arrested by the
Chinese authorities.
That vast roundup was the first known instance of a
computer-generated mass incarceration, and its victims
were almost all Uyghurs, the Turkic Muslim population
whose Central Asian homeland, Xinjiang—or as we call it,
East Turkistan—was handed over to Mao Zedong by
Stalin in 1949, after a very brief period of independence.
Labeling almost all Uyghurs as potential religious
extremists and a threat to the Communist Party’s
authority, the People’s Republic of China has rounded up
as many as three million of them, as well as other
Muslim ethnic groups, into what it euphemistically calls
“reeducation camps.”
These arrests are extrajudicial, based on an individual’s
race, ethnicity and religion, the same criteria used by
Nazi Germany to round up Jews and Roma. On paper,
the reason given for the arrests was “de-extremification.”
Since 9/11, China has used the Uyghurs’ Muslim faith as
an excuse to portray the population of eleven million as
potential Al Qaeda terrorists—all of them, men, women
and children.
But the real reason is this: Beijing does not consider
the Uyghurs to be “Chinese” enough. The authorities
perceive their centuries-old ethnonational identity, religion
and cultural heritage as disloyalty to the party and a
source of future political threat to the state. Uyghurs
have their own language, literature and history, formed
over thousands of years at the point where Buddhist,
Manichaeism and Muslim identities have historically
overlapped. The Communist party, under General
Secretary Xi Jinping, has tried to label anyone who tries
to oppose China’s crackdown as “separatists” or
“terrorists,” designations punishable by life imprisonment
or the death penalty, just as they did with
pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and peaceful
Buddhist monks in Tibet.
China’s main interest in Xinjiang is, however, the land.
Located on the fringes of Central Asia’s vast steppes,
the region—the largest in China, roughly the size of
Alaska—contains huge tracts of natural resources and
minerals (petroleum, natural gas, coal, gold, copper, lead,
zinc) and long stretches of fertile agricultural land. In
fact, Xinjiang produces about 20 percent of the world’s
cotton supplies. To keep this supply chain going, China
has assigned “work placements”—essentially forced
labor—for Uyghurs to toil in these cotton fields, as well
as in local factories that get contracts to manufacture
goods in the West. Top brands such as Adidas, H&M
and Uniqlo have been identified as having used cotton
from Xinjiang, and the US has recently announced
human rights–linked sanctions against eleven Chinese
companies that have supplied material or parts to Apple,
Ralph Lauren, Google, HP, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss
and Muji.
For the first time since the heyday of the antebellum
South, cotton slavery is once again polluting the global
economy on an industrial scale.
Here we are in the third decade of the twentieth
century, witnessing a population’s genocide on a massive
scale. The tactics used to implement this genocide are
reminiscent of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, but on
digital steroids. Since Mao’s day, Beijing has updated its
technique with an arsenal of the latest technology, much
of it stolen from Silicon Valley and adapted to its own
malignant purposes. The decades-long struggle over its
occupation of Tibet—a cause that is largely lost in the
eyes of human rights groups—helped the Chinese refine
their tactics for suppressing an entire people. It became
efficient at eradicating culture and independence while
evoking very little protest from the world.
There is every sign that China is doing all this not just
to brush aside the Uyghurs, Tibetans and Hong
Kongers, but to perfect the art of digital dictatorship, a
new kind of AI totalitarian state. Already, many of the
spying practices used en masse against the Uyghurs are
commonplace in spying on the 1.4 billion citizens of
China. Their social credit system monitors ordinary
people’s behavior using digital technology. Closed-circuit
cameras, spying on phone apps and logging credit card
information are used to determine what is known as a
person’s “social credit score,” a Black Mirror–style
grading of how worthy a citizen is. Littering, buying too
much alcohol—or too little, if you are a “suspicious”
Uyghur, Kazakh or other Turkic Muslim in Xinjiang—can
lead to a Chinese resident being denied the right to buy
a plane ticket or even to board a train. If you flee
abroad and speak up, the People’s Republic will track
you down, spy on you, harass you and vanish your
family into its prison camp system, or lean on your host
country to send you back.
China’s ability to combine this dystopian level of AI
spying with Chairman Mao–style totalitarianism is a
terrifying threat. What is even more bizarre and
unprecedented is the hundreds of thousands of Chinese
spies sent to live with Uyghur families—often sleeping
next to the family members in their cramped bedrooms.
They call themselves the “Becoming Family” program,
and the spies live in homes to report on suspicious
Muslim-related activities. Imagine if the East German Stasi
were not just spying on you, but had their spies living
inside your flat, pretending to be your family and using
your own children to spy on you. That’s where we are
in this region. Spies’ reports are fed into computers and
as a result, parents are sometimes carted off in the
middle of the night to the camps, their children treated
as orphans and sent off to their own Chinese “schools”
where they are indoctrinated in Mandarin Chinese against
their culture and their own missing parents.
As a lawyer helping Uyghurs to find refuge from this
horror, and now as a commissioner on the United
States Commission on International Religious Freedom, I
often meet with Uyghur parents who have been forced
to flee their homes without being able to take their kids
with them. Together, we lobby to get their children out.
I sit in on the most chilling video calls: desperate
mothers and fathers calling home to speak to their kids,
only to see a video image of their child sitting on the
knee of a Chinese cop. Quite often the children, who
have been brainwashed by these officers, will act coolly
toward their own parents. It’s hard to describe how
heartbreaking it is to see parents, afraid they may
never see their kids in person again, unable to connect
emotionally with their own children.
Given the vast scale of China’s persecution, why are
we not hearing more about this genocide unfolding
before our very eyes? Well, for a start, the world didn’t
know the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust until US and
other Allied troops marched into Dachau and
Bergen-Belsen in 1945. And certainly, China has banned
journalists and independent observers from being allowed
within miles of the camps (although it did allow Disney to
shoot the movie Mulan almost within sight of a number
of concentration camps).
The towns and cities of Xinjiang have been turned into
high-tech military camps, with surveillance cameras and
checkpoints everywhere. Trucks fitted with highly
sensitive listening devices snoop on casual conversations
in people’s homes, trying to pick up in private
conversations what the “Becoming Family” live-in Chinese
spies may have missed. China has created, in the words
of one Uyghur who fled to the United States after his
father vanished into the camps, “a police surveillance
state unlike any the world has ever known.”
It’s extremely difficult to get accurate information out of
Xinjiang. Some dedicated journalists have managed to
capture glimpses of life in my oppressed homeland. And
only through my own extensive links to my community
and my work as a human rights lawyer have I
managed to establish the contacts and the trust to lay
bare what is really going on.
Some of our knowledge comes from satellite images of
the sprawling camps, but a surprising amount of
photographic and video evidence comes from the
Chinese government itself. Having initially tried to deny
the existence of the camps, it changed course when
incontrovertible evidence started to seep out: Beijing
released the images to try to sanitize what they were
doing. It publishes carefully curated pictures of the
imposing buildings, of Uyghur men in blue coveralls
sitting in yards behind razor wire and with armed
guards behind them. Then it says to the world, “Look,
these are just normal work training facilities.” It puts out
pictures of little Uyghur kids, separated from their
parents in special schools where they are dressed in
traditional colorful Chinese robes—red and yellow, with
old-fashioned hats on—something not even modern
Chinese kids wear to school.
Then there are the testimonials of those who have
lived through the camps. These are Uyghurs who have
witnessed torture, waterboarding, rape and beatings. We
know about dozens of women who have testified to
undergoing forced sterilization in a camp before being
released—what we now see is a brutal but effective
effort to slash the Uyghur population. Having more than
the allotted number of two children is a common cause
for arrest among Uyghur women. There are only a
handful of individuals who’ve managed to escape from
China, and those largely because they were married to
foreign nationals whose governments offered them some
support. But even that support was often limited,
because most governments are too afraid to offend
Beijing. Some, such as Egypt’s, have even begun
deporting Uyghurs at China’s request, despite their
longstanding claims of “Muslim solidarity” when it came
to the occupied Palestinian territories.
Despite the mounting evidence of the horror unfolding,
the world continues to allow this to happen. Political and
business leaders are afraid of China’s economic clout, its
military strength and its growing diplomatic muscle. Even
as China frantically worked to cover up the full extent of
the deadly COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan—the final death
toll will probably never be known—it used its diplomatic
influence to get the World Health Organization to praise
its response as the “the most ambitious, agile and
aggressive disease containment effort in history,” while at
the same time parroting official government figures that
independent reporting has shown to be highly dubious. A
couple of years ago, China even managed to arrest the
head of Interpol, a Chinese citizen, and sentence him to
thirteen years in jail. The world just accepted it.
Now it is herding millions of its own citizens into camps,
using slave labor to bolster its economic strength,
bulldozing mosques and Muslim cemeteries in Xinjiang,
and building parking lots and theme parks where ancient
cultural monuments once stood. Leaked documents
quote Chairman Xi—who was allegedly praised by former
President Donald Trump, even as the US and China
were locked into a trade war over China’s theft of
intellectual property, and now over the abuse of the
Uyghur people—secretly calling on his minions to use the
“organs of dictatorship” and show “absolutely no mercy.”
Any Chinese official who fails to show sufficient
ruthlessness in obeying orders risks ending up in jail
themselves. As the Washington Post noted, “In China,
every day is Kristallnacht.”
One truly frightening aspect of countries not denouncing
China’s action is this: they might actually want to copy
the lessons learned there. China’s burgeoning model of
capitalism without democracy will appeal to many
authoritarian rulers and will come to shape the ideological
struggle of the coming century.
Already, India is building camps that can house up to
two million Muslims in the state of Assam, people whom
it has deemed to be noncitizens even though many
were born in India or lived there for decades. It intends
to hold them there until they can be deported to
countries like Bangladesh, where India’s nationalist
government claims they belong. Worryingly, the
government intends to expand the program of mass
camps to the rest of the country.
“‘Never again?’ It’s already happening,” Anne
Applebaum wrote in the Washington Post. She is right:
What was supposed to happen “never again” is now
being carried out in China, and on an industrial scale.
The names in this book may sound strange to
Western readers; the places might seem remote and
hard to picture. But the people you will meet on these
pages are real. They are normal, everyday people like
you and I, unwillingly dragged into the horrors of
China’s newest crime against humanity.
Terror and persecution wear people down, hollow them
out. My friends say I too have aged. I can’t remember
the last time I had a full night’s sleep, because the fear
and anxiety gnaw at me in the darkness. Will I ever
see my parents again? Who will carry my parents’
casket if they die? Will we ever meet again, as I
promised them years ago? What further horrors await
my people? And this time, will the world act fast enough
to stop a genocide before it reaches its terrible conclusion?
1 Although Uyghurs refer to our homeland as East
Turkistan, for the sake of consistency and ease of
recognition I will use the official Chinese name of Xinjiang
throughout.
May 30, 2022
For those who already follow or are involved with the fight for Uyghur rights, this book provides a nuanced account of how the Uyghur genocide and resistance to it have evolved through 2021.
Understandably, many people may not feel like the genocide in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) is real or relevant to their own lives. If you care about human rights, democracy, Chinese or Muslim identity in any way, please read this book. If you've bought from brands such as Adidas, Uniqlo, Muji, Hugo Boss, Apple, Google, or Huawei, your purchases may very well be linked to forced labor. Global supply chains for cotton, solar panels, surveillance technology, even tomatoes have deep ties to Xinjiang, China and associated forced labor.
Nury Terkel, founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, provides an eye-opening and damning account of the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people - and at a crucial time. Uyghur language is no longer taught in Xinjiang. A culture's language can be lost over as few as three generations. In 2020, the birth rate in Xinjiang was just 8.14 births per 1,000 people based on China's National Bureau of Statistics - even lower in Uyghur-dominated areas compared to Han-dominated parts of the province.
Terkel provides an in-depth look into what is the largest detention of ethnic/religious minorities since WWII, through state-sanctioned concentration camps, forced labor and slavery. He elevates the stories of bravery and resistance of several Uyghur women and men. The accounts of torture, rape, forced IUD implants and sterilization, destruction of families, culture and heritage, and mass surveillance of people - often solely based on their ethnic and religious identity - are not easy to stomach. Acknowledging that they have happened is the first step to healing. Terkel weaves in the efforts of allied activists, journalists, and politicians working hard to increase awareness, secure safety for survivors and their families, and advocate for sanctions and regulations.
Understandably, many people may not feel like the genocide in Xinjiang (East Turkestan) is real or relevant to their own lives. If you care about human rights, democracy, Chinese or Muslim identity in any way, please read this book. If you've bought from brands such as Adidas, Uniqlo, Muji, Hugo Boss, Apple, Google, or Huawei, your purchases may very well be linked to forced labor. Global supply chains for cotton, solar panels, surveillance technology, even tomatoes have deep ties to Xinjiang, China and associated forced labor.
Nury Terkel, founder of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, provides an eye-opening and damning account of the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people - and at a crucial time. Uyghur language is no longer taught in Xinjiang. A culture's language can be lost over as few as three generations. In 2020, the birth rate in Xinjiang was just 8.14 births per 1,000 people based on China's National Bureau of Statistics - even lower in Uyghur-dominated areas compared to Han-dominated parts of the province.
Terkel provides an in-depth look into what is the largest detention of ethnic/religious minorities since WWII, through state-sanctioned concentration camps, forced labor and slavery. He elevates the stories of bravery and resistance of several Uyghur women and men. The accounts of torture, rape, forced IUD implants and sterilization, destruction of families, culture and heritage, and mass surveillance of people - often solely based on their ethnic and religious identity - are not easy to stomach. Acknowledging that they have happened is the first step to healing. Terkel weaves in the efforts of allied activists, journalists, and politicians working hard to increase awareness, secure safety for survivors and their families, and advocate for sanctions and regulations.
July 24, 2022
Everyone should read this book. An emotionally factual read. Opened my eyes and now I want to find ways to help.
February 5, 2023
felt like i was researching my dissertation again!! so interesting, ppl please read and realise what is going on
June 1, 2024
Luulin lukeneeni ja tietäväni melko paljon uiguurien tilanteesta, mutta olin väärässä. Tosi informatiivista ja myös järkyttävää luettavaa!
July 11, 2022
Mindblowing.
June 8, 2022
This should be required reading for everyone.
June 14, 2022
Heartbreaking.
November 10, 2023
If it weren't for the amount of times I had to take a break from reading because I was so unbelievably angry, I would have read this book a lot faster.
May 31, 2022
so so so sad but a must read to be aware of what is going on in Xinjiang
May 23, 2022
*thank you to Libro.FM for an ALC*
It’s absurd to me that all the events detailed in this novel are happening RIGHT NOW and the vast majority of people don’t know about it. Please read this book, please see the issues in the world around us. PLEASE spread awareness PLEASE listen to the stories of those around you and urge your government to make a positive change.
This is horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. And it’s happening across the ocean from me — the wiping of an entire culture and it’s people — a GENOCIDE. Read this. Educate yourself.
It’s absurd to me that all the events detailed in this novel are happening RIGHT NOW and the vast majority of people don’t know about it. Please read this book, please see the issues in the world around us. PLEASE spread awareness PLEASE listen to the stories of those around you and urge your government to make a positive change.
This is horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. And it’s happening across the ocean from me — the wiping of an entire culture and it’s people — a GENOCIDE. Read this. Educate yourself.
May 31, 2022
Everyone should read this book! The story telling of real people keeps you engaged while learning so many valuable scary things about China and their desire for domination over their own people and the world, which sounds dramatic but it’s true.
Read
May 21, 2022A powerful memoir that lays bares China’s repression of the Uyghur people by Nury Turkel, cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and now a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.
May 19, 2022
MUST Read
It will change your shopping habits.
It will change your shopping habits.
May 18, 2022
Very eye opening
April 19, 2022
I listened to this book with Libro.fm and I cannot explain how moving it was. Unfortunately this was the first I’ve heard about the Uyghurs and the way China used, abused, and imprisoned their own people.
I remember being in high school drivers Ed class and hearing about rules being broken in the states, and other countries. China was by far the most extreme, such as a person caught stealing would have their hand chopped off. I remember thinking “I bet they don’t have any crime there!”. As I listened to this story and heard the way some people were treated it broke my heart. Even if you weren’t in jail you were monitored with facial recognition cameras so you could be identified later, everyone was watched on surveillance, and China was/is always policing its people. Essentially everyone is scared of being noticed or calling attention to themselves for fear of being imprisoned. The stories of torture, rape, sterilization, children being taken from mothers, families destroyed, it was all so hard to hear but so necessary. It also saddened me to hear about big brand companies who are turning a blind eye to their products being made in “sweat shops”. Honestly I made a list of these companies and plan on not giving them my business. These people who tell families their loved ones are in “reeducation camps” aren’t telling the truth, these are interment camps that have imprisoned innocent people.
I finished listening to this story and it’s still so heavy on my chest.
I remember being in high school drivers Ed class and hearing about rules being broken in the states, and other countries. China was by far the most extreme, such as a person caught stealing would have their hand chopped off. I remember thinking “I bet they don’t have any crime there!”. As I listened to this story and heard the way some people were treated it broke my heart. Even if you weren’t in jail you were monitored with facial recognition cameras so you could be identified later, everyone was watched on surveillance, and China was/is always policing its people. Essentially everyone is scared of being noticed or calling attention to themselves for fear of being imprisoned. The stories of torture, rape, sterilization, children being taken from mothers, families destroyed, it was all so hard to hear but so necessary. It also saddened me to hear about big brand companies who are turning a blind eye to their products being made in “sweat shops”. Honestly I made a list of these companies and plan on not giving them my business. These people who tell families their loved ones are in “reeducation camps” aren’t telling the truth, these are interment camps that have imprisoned innocent people.
I finished listening to this story and it’s still so heavy on my chest.
April 6, 2022
Thank you to libro.fm for providing me with an ALC of this book.
While I know a tiny bit about the Uyghur's plight, this book taught me so much about what is actually happening, and how it happened. I was most surprised about the way that China uses technology to monitor the people living there, and how it's been twisted to oppress an entire group of people.
Nury Turkel shares his own story, knowing that his family members still live in China and are at great risk. He also conducts interviews with survivors of the "reintegration" camps that are contributing to a massive genocide, both of people and an entire culture.
The most dangerous part of this entire story is the way that China controls so much of the market, so that many governments and large companies aren't able to stop doing business or impose strong sanctions on China without massive repercussions. At the same time, I'm absolutely outraged that the free world is basically just sitting by and allowing this to happen.
This book is well-written and narrated beautifully and sensitively, especially with such a difficult and painful topic that directly affects the author.
While I know a tiny bit about the Uyghur's plight, this book taught me so much about what is actually happening, and how it happened. I was most surprised about the way that China uses technology to monitor the people living there, and how it's been twisted to oppress an entire group of people.
Nury Turkel shares his own story, knowing that his family members still live in China and are at great risk. He also conducts interviews with survivors of the "reintegration" camps that are contributing to a massive genocide, both of people and an entire culture.
The most dangerous part of this entire story is the way that China controls so much of the market, so that many governments and large companies aren't able to stop doing business or impose strong sanctions on China without massive repercussions. At the same time, I'm absolutely outraged that the free world is basically just sitting by and allowing this to happen.
This book is well-written and narrated beautifully and sensitively, especially with such a difficult and painful topic that directly affects the author.
April 22, 2022
Nury Turkel was born in a Mao era prison in China as a member of the Uyghur minority and was later imprisoned as part of the recent genocide of Uyghurs. He managed to escape China and make a name for himself in the US as an advocate for the Uyghur people. His story is at once mesmerizing, horrifying, hopeful and depressing. He talks a great deal about what he went through and he highlights the stories of several other Uyghurs who have escaped. These people have so much courage and I am astounded by what they have gone through. This is an important book for people all over the world to read. There are still too many who are ignorant of what is happening in China. The more publicity this situation gets the sooner it will hopefully be changed. Please read this book! Thanks @netgalley for the ARC.
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