Like more than one million other Uighurs, Gulbahar Haitiwaji was imprisoned in a Chinese re-education camp in Xinjiang. She survived three years but feared she would never see her family again.
ABCBY: IBTISSEM GUENFOUD AND GUY DAVIES, ABC NEWS (PARIS) Gulbahar Haitiwaji says when she was summoned back to China to sign documents relating to her retirement as an oil company engineer in November 2016, she could not have possibly known the fate that awaited her. A member of Xinjiang province's Uighur ethnic minority, she had left the country for France 10 years earlier, but still possessed a Chinese passport. After she was unable to grant one of her relatives power of attorney to handle the matter, she traveled to the country at the end of the month. She says she wasn't allowed to leave the country or see her husband, a fellow Uighur who had fled Xinjiang with whom she has two children back in France for the next three years. Haitiwaji says she was lured back to the country under false pretenses and claims she was accused of being a terrorist and sentenced to seven years of detention in one of Xinjiang's notorious "re-education camps." Now 54, Haiti
Gulbahar Haitiwaji survived a Chinese 're-education camp' for Uighur Muslims. She has a story that millions have experienced, but few have dared to tell.
Uighur author tells of imprisonment and China attacks yahoo.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from yahoo.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
INTERVIEW: Uighur author tells of imprisonment, China attacks
AFP, PARIS
Gulbahar Haitiwaji knew that China would not be happy about her book describing nearly three years of imprisonment, brainwashing and harassment at the hands of the authorities simply because she is a Uighur.
However, the ferocity with which Beijing has lashed out at the 54-year-old author exceeded her worst expectations.
Branded “a terrorist,” “a separatist” and “a liar” after publishing her book
Rescapee du Goulag Chinois (
Survivor of the Chinese Gulag) in France, Haitiwaji said she was surprised that nothing seemed to be off-limits even her personal life, which Chinese officials called “chaotic.”