INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image caption
Aibota Serik says her father has disappeared into China's network of detention centres
The Chinese government calls them free "vocational training centres"; Aibota Serik, a Chinese Kazakh whose father was sent to one, calls
them prisons.Her father Kudaybergen Serik was a local imam in Tarbagatay (Tacheng) prefecture of China's western Xinjiang region
In February 2018 the police detained him and Aibota hasn't heard from her father since then
"I don't know why my father was imprisoned
He didn't violate any laws of China, he was not tried in a court," she says, clutching a small photo of him, before breaking down in tears.I
met Aibota together with a group of other Chinese Kazakhs in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city
They gathered in a small office to petition the Kazakh government to help secure the release of their relatives who had disappeared in
"political re-education camps".The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has heard there are credible reports that around
one million people have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang
Almost all of them are from Muslim minorities such as the Uighurs, Kazakhs and others
There are more than a million Kazakhs living in China
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, thousands moved to oil-rich Kazakhstan, encouraged by its policy to attract ethnic Kazakhs
Today, these people feel cut off from their relatives who stayed in China
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Nurbulat Tursunjan says the Chinese authorities have confiscated his parents' passports
Nurbulat Tursunjan uulu, who moved to the Almaty region in 2016, says his elderly parents are unable to leave China and come to Kazakhstan
because the authorities took away their passports
Another petitioner, Bekmurat Nusupkan uulu, says that relatives in China are afraid to talk on the phone or on the popular Chinese
And they are right to be afraid, he says."My father-in-law visited me in February 2018
From my place, he called his son in China, he asked how he was and so on
Shortly after that his son Baurzhan was detained
He was told that he had received phone calls from Kazakhstan two or three times and was sent to a political camp."Human Rights Watch says
detainees are held "without any due process rights - neither charged nor put on trial - and have no access to lawyers and family".Image
copyrightReutersImage caption
China insists its detention centres, such as this one in the city of Kashgar, are for
"vocational training"
Orynbek Koksybek is an ethnic Kazakh who spent several months in camps
"I spent seven days of hell there," he says
"My hands were handcuffed, my legs were tied
I raised both my hands and looked above
At that moment, they poured water
I screamed."I don't remember what happened next
I don't know how long I was in the pit but it was winter and very cold
They said I was a traitor, that I had dual citizenship, that I had a debt and owned land." None of that was true, he says.A week later Mr
Koksybek was taken to a different place where he learnt Chinese songs and language
He was told he would leave if he learnt 3,000 words
Image caption
Orynbek Koksybek says he was thrown into a pit
"In Chinese they call it re-education camps
to teach people but if they wanted to educate, why do they handcuff people "They detain Kazakhs because they're Muslims
Why imprison them China's aim is to turn Kazakhs into Chinese
They want to erase the whole ethnicity," he says.It is not possible to independently verify Orynbek Koksybek's story, but his account is
similar to many documented by Human Rights Watch and other activists
The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan has not replied to the TheIndianSubcontinent's request for comment, but the Chinese authorities have
been quoted in state media as saying the camps are "vocational training centres", which aim to "get rid of an environment that breeds
terrorism and religious extremism"
The Kazakh government says that any restrictions on Chinese citizens in China are their internal matter, and it does not interfere
However, Kazakhstan says it will try to assist any Kazakh citizens who are detained in China.
