My name is Murat Harri Uyghur, ethnic Uyghur besed in Finland. My mother Guihuahan Tiemuer and father Saitiniyazi Wufuer are detained in a interment camp in Turpan. They are two of millions of Uyghurs and Kazakhs, who are suffering under detention in China’s interment camps in Uyghur region, Uyghurs prefer to call their homeland East Turkestan. I have started a campaign for my parents and millions of other innocent detainees of interment camps.

21st Century Concentration Camps

How is it even possible in the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY?

I am afraid it is... Chinese authority has built massive concentration camps in East Turkestan (so called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) to hold millions of Uyghur and Kazakh muslims and currently expanding them to hold even more people, for more details check https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs.

Red flags for detainment

According to an article by Foreign Policy,

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/13/48-ways-to-get-sent-to-a-chinese-concentration-camp/

People who falls under the following categories will be sent to concentration camps.​

Red Flags for Detainment in Xinjiang

What happens to families?

According to a report by The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/china-internment-camps-uighur-muslim-children/569062/:

"

When parents are interned, younger children are sent to de facto
orphanages known as “child welfare guidance centers” and older children
are sometimes sent to state-run vocational schools, Feng reported.
 One former teacher told her: “The child is forbidden to go to school
with the normal children because the parents have a political problem.”
Children have been taken by the state even when grandparents pleaded to
be able to keep them, according to Feng. She cited local media reports
that Xinjiang has been building dozens of new, typically massive
orphanages, with 18 popping up in a single county in the city of Kashgar
 last year. A worker at one Xinjiang orphanage described serious
overcrowding and “terrible” conditions there, telling Radio Free Asia that children aged six months to 12 years are “locked up like farm animals in a shed.”

"

What happens inside camps?

• ​torture
• ideological indoctrination
• detainees are forced to denounce Islam
• detainees are forced to denounce ethnic identity and culture
  
• detainees are forced to eat pork and drink alcohol (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-re-education-muslims-ramadan-xinjiang-eat-pork-alcohol-communist-xi-jinping-a8357966.html)
• There are reports of death in camps which includes well known scholar Muhammad Salih Hajim.
• Inhumane living conditions (extremely poor hygiene,  very crowded living space, etc.)

And the list goes on, for details check: https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-life-like-in-xinjiang-reeducation-camps-china-2018-5?r=US&IR=T&IR=T

Uyghurs abroad are being blackmailed into silence by China

According to this piece: (https://supchina.com/2018/08/22/xinjiang-explainer-chinas-reeducation-camps-for-a-million-muslims/)

"There have been reports for years that China was exerting pressure on Uyghurs abroad — see, for example, a SupChina roundup of a few stories in August 2017: A chill for Uyghurs sweeps across the Mediterranean. Also see a report by Emily Feng at the Financial Times from the same time that indicated, “Chinese officials have since May been sending notices to overseas Uighur students demanding their immediate return — often after detaining their parents in China,” and that “about 150” Uyghur students at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Eygpt, had been detained by local authorities, with at least 22 being deported."

​An information black hole

Uyghurs living outside China have no way of contacting their families or loved ones, knowing their whereabouts. Their lives are intermingled with fear, depression, frustration and anxiety. I myself have nightmares about my parents and siblings often. My day starts with agonizing pain in my heart after waking up from a nightmare (about loved ones back home), moves on with continues struggles to keep it together in front of my kids and at my work, ends in mind-numbing hopelessness.  Here is a recent piece from Hong Kong Free Press on exiled Uyghur muslims: https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/09/02/information-black-hole-exiled-muslim-uighurs-fear-loved-ones-back-home-china-tightens-grip-xinjiang/

"Murat said that he emigrated to escape the crackdown in Xinjiang, but still routinely experiences panic attacks and bouts of insomnia: “I am powerless and don’t know what to do,” he said. “I do not know where my family is, have they passed away or not. If so, where are their bodies? It is like an information black hole.”"

​Our response 1: Freedom Tour 2018

On September 19th, 2018, we will hold a demonstration at Snatentori square in Helsinki at 2 p.m to kick off  the “Freedom Tour” serial demonstrations. The “Freedom Tour” serial demonstrations are organized by multinational human rights groups from different countries across Europe. Which starts from Helsinki, continues onto Stockholm, Oslo, Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris ending in Brussels. Main purpose of the demonstration is to create and promote awareness of the deplorable situation in Uyghur region and Uyghur's plight.

​China's possible attempt to undermine Freedom Tour

While I have been organizing and preparing for the Freedom Tour, my car, which I was planning to use in this tour, was vandalized by unknown individuals. I take it as a signal from China telling me to stop. But listen up China, I won't stop until you close down the camps and release every single person from them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObbIbsPHGO4​

​Uyghur Aid Foundation

Meanwhile, as I mentioned in my previous campaign, we were creating a charity organization to raise funds for Uyghur cause and to help financially challenged Uyghur students, children and mothers that lost their loved ones in concentration camps. The organization registration process is well underway, and we have purchased a domain name (uyghuraid.org) and hosting service. We are currently creating the website and adding content. We will use this site to promote our fund raising campaigns and causes.

​Budget planning

1. transportation costs (Car service and fuel, tolls, etc) (1500 EUR)

2. promotion materials (flyers, pamphlets, etc). and online campaigning (such as FB ads, etc.) costs (500 EURO)

3. Travel & lodging (2000 EUR)

4. UyghurAid.org website creation and maintenance for a year (1000 EUR)

I hereby plea to brothers and sisters, please help us in our cause.

May Allah accept your donations and make them heavy on your scale of good deeds​.

Yours

Sincerely,

Murat and UyghurAid volunteers

related links:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideological-viruses/chinas-campaign-repression-against-xinjiangs

https://supchina.com/2018/08/22/xinjiang-explainer-chinas-reeducation-camps-for-a-million-muslims/

https://uhrp.org/featured-articles/chinas-re-education-concentration-camps-xinjiang

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-re-education-muslims-ramadan-xinjiang-eat-pork-alcohol-communist-xi-jinping-a8357966.html

https://uyghurs.blog/

https://uyghuraid.org/blog/2018/08/30/freedom-tour-an-international-serial-demonstration

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/09/china-internment-camps-uighur-muslim-children/569062/

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/millions-08032018142025.html