Exiled Chinese detective reveals Uyghur torture details

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(CNN)The raids started after midnight in Xinjiang.

Hundreds of police officers armed with rifles went house to house in Uyghur communities in the far western region of China, pulling people from their homes, handcuffing and hooding them, and threatening to shoot them if they resisted, a former Chinese police detective tells CNN.

"We took (them) all forcibly overnight," he said. "If there were hundreds of people in one county in this area, then you had to arrest these hundreds of people."
The ex-detective turned whistleblower asked to be identified only as Jiang, to protect his family members who remain in China.

In a three-hour interview with CNN, conducted in Europe where he is now in exile, Jiang revealed rare details on what he described as a systematic campaign of torture against ethnic Uyghurs in the region's detention camp system, claims China has denied for years.

"Kick them, beat them (until they're) bruised and swollen," Jiang said, recalling how he and his colleagues used to interrogate detainees in police detention centers. "Until they kneel on the floor crying."

During his time in Xinjiang, Jiang said every new detainee was beaten during the interrogation process -- including men, women and children as young as 14.

The methods included shackling people to a metal or wooden "tiger chair" -- chairs designed to immobilize suspects -- hanging people from the ceiling, sexual violence, electrocutions, and waterboarding. Inmates were often forced to stay awake for days, and denied food and water, he said.

"Everyone uses different methods. Some even use a wrecking bar, or iron chains with locks," Jiang said. "Police would step on the suspect's face and tell him to confess."

The suspects were accused of terror offenses, said Jiang, but he believes that "none" of the hundreds of prisoners he was involved in arresting had committed a crime. "They are ordinary people," he said.

The torture in police detention centers only stopped when the suspects confessed, Jiang said. Then they were usually transferred to another facility, like a prison or an internment camp manned by prison guards.

In order to help verify his testimony, Jiang showed CNN his police uniform, official documents, photographs, videos, and identification from his time in China, most of which can't be published to protect his identity. CNN has submitted detailed questions to the Chinese government about his accusations, so far without a response.

CNN cannot independently confirm Jiang's claims, but multiple details of his recollections echo the experiences of two Uyghur victims CNN interviewed for this report. More than 50 former inmates of the camp system also provided testimony to Amnesty International for a 160-page report released in June, "'Like We Were Enemies in a War': China's Mass Internment, Torture, and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang."

[...]

Inside the police detention centers, the main goal was to extract a confession from detainees, with sexual torture being one of the tactics, Jiang said.

"If you want people to confess, you use the electric baton with two sharp tips on top," Jiang said. "We would tie two electrical wires on the tips and set the wires on their genitals while the person is tied up."

He admitted he often had to play "bad cop" during interrogations but said he avoided the worst of the violence, unlike some of his colleagues.

"Some people see this as a job, some are just psychopaths," he said.

One "very common measure" of torture and dehumanization was for guards to order prisoners to rape and abuse the new male inmates, Jiang said.

[...]

Jiang said even before his time in Xinjiang, he had become "disappointed" with the Chinese Communist Party due to increasing levels of corruption.

"They were pretending to serve the people, but they were a bunch of people who wanted to achieve a dictatorship," he said. In fleeing China and exposing his experience there, he said he wanted to "stand on the side of the people."

Now, Jiang knows he can never return to China -- "they'll beat me half to death," he said.

"I'd be arrested. There would be a lot of problems. Defection, treason, leaking government secrets, subversion. (I'd get) them all," he said.

"The fact that I speak for Uyghurs (means I) could be charged for participating in a terrorist group. I could be charged for everything imaginable."

When asked what he would do if he came face-to-face with one of his former victims, he said he would be "scared" and would "leave immediately."

"I am guilty, and I'd hope that a situation like this won't happen to them again," Jiang said. "I'd hope for their forgiveness, but it'd be too difficult for people who suffered from torture like that."

"How do I face these people?" he added. "Even if you're just a soldier, you're still responsible for what happened. You need to execute orders, but so many people did this thing together. We're responsible for this."

"tankies"?

"tankies"?

FXE explained what they are pretty well, authoritarian leftists who will defend Mao and Stalin, but I like to think of them as the racist uncles of the left, an embarrassing relative who everyone wishes would just shut up and go away.

Well...yes both you and he are describing the extinct political animal well.

But if thats what he is talking about its a nonsequitar if I ever heard one.

Even if "red fashies" (never heard that term before either) still existed they wouldnt apologize for this because China isnt even "Red" anymore anyway. China is more capitalistic than the US nowadays.

Tankies didnt complain when the similar oppression of Tibet became a cause celeb in the West even before the fall of Communism in 1990.


Mao helped the Vietnamese Communist fight a 25 year long war to kick the French, and the US, out of Southeast Asia in the Twentieth Century. But three twenty First Century US Presidents (Obama, Trump, and Biden) have each already courted Communist Vietnam as a potential ally against China! This aint the old Cold War anymore.



Havent read the article posted, but I am sure that its all unspeakable. But obviously there aint squat that any American can do about it.

Whats relevant is not Westerners apologizing for the torture. Its Eastern Muslim Islamists responding to this oppression of a Muslim ethnic group by China. Are Jihadists going to do a 9-11, or even just a Charlie Hebdo on China in revenge? Or are they going to find a way to justify NOT doing terrorism against China? Thats the interesting question.

Since we don't have any tankies I don't imagine anyone is likely to defend China's crimes against humanity.

I'm not so sure: I've seen certain people respond to any critism of the Chinese government and\or it's actions with assertions of Xenophobia or "racism", so there's a chance some may try to defend these actions...

We'll see how things go but I'm willing to bet that any criticism is an overstatement.

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/04/china/xinjiang-detective-torture-intl-hnk-dst/index.html

I'm not so sure: I've seen certain people respond to any critism of the Chinese government and\or it's actions with assertions of Xenophobia or "racism", so there's a chance some may try to defend these actions...

As an example, claims about a virus escaping from a lab as a result of an accident were treated that way, despite the fact that the types of accidents have been known to occur in many countries (including their own) and would only reflect upon the lab\staff\government there, and not the country as a whole - Whereas associating it with "wet markets" (and the types of food bought there by citizens of the country) was seen as acceptable to (and sometimes promoted by) those people, regardless of the fact that these would influence how people considered a country\citizens of a country who would eat those types of food (In the same way the USA is associated with "fast food", France with Escargot, etc).

In a choice between an accident that could happen anywhere (but linked to a nation's government), and promoting an association between citizens of a nation with consumption of certain items by them (which would be seen by those who were unaware of the practice as anywhere from unusual to repulsive), it was felt that the accident was the "racist"\xenophobic option by those people.

This is probably the pavlovian dog bell response, bypassing the brain.