The Ghulja Massacre of 1997 and the Face of Uyghur Genocide Today
24 years ago, a brutal crackdown on Uyghur protesters changed one family’s lives forever. Incredibly, things have only gotten worse for the Uyghurs since then.
By
February 05, 2021
Saliha (right) and Abdurazzak Shamseden, the author’s brother, who was detained in 1998 and subsequently handed a life sentence for “splittism.”
Credit: Family-provided photo
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Every time I see the deep, round scars on her wrists and arms, I think of the blood flowing out of the holes that made them, dripping onto the floor of that grim torture room in the Ghulja city police station, as she is tortured to confess to crimes that do not exist. She is Saliha, my sister, one of thousands of youths in Ghulja whose lives turned into a nightmare after the Ghulja massacre.