{"id":4097,"date":"2018-09-30T14:01:41","date_gmt":"2018-09-30T14:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2018\/09\/30\/my-soul-where-are-you-families-muslims-missing-china-meet-wall-silence\/"},"modified":"2018-09-30T14:01:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-30T14:01:41","slug":"my-soul-where-are-you-families-muslims-missing-china-meet-wall-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/my-soul-where-are-you-families-muslims-missing-china-meet-wall-silence\/","title":{"rendered":"‘My soul, where are you?’: families of Muslims missing in China meet wall of silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

F<\/span><\/span>or more than a year, *Farkhad, 39, has lived with the uncertainty that his wife Mariam may be dead. *Mariam, 31, was visiting her hometown of Artush in Xinjiang<\/a>, northwest China, in March 2017 when she sent a frantic message to Farkhad that police were taking her away.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next month, she messaged sporadically on WeChat from inside what appeared to be a detention <\/span>centre<\/span>. In April she said she was being transferred to another facility. Farkhad, who calls his wife Jenim<\/em> (My soul), wrote back: \u201cMy soul, what can I do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Farkhad<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t do anything. Don\u2019t come to China<\/a>. Don\u2019t look for me,\u201d she said. Their last conversation was in June 2017, when Mariam messaged from a hospital. She had fainted twice in the new detention <\/span>centre<\/span>. Farkhad, now the sole carer of the couple\u2019s three children, is desperate for news of her.<\/span><\/p>\n

The camps are part of China\u2019s \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaign that is alleged to use extrajudicial detentions, surveillance, political indoctrination or \u201cre-education\u201d, torture and abuse to root out extremist elements, according to a growing body of evidence that includes witness accounts, media reports, government documents <\/span>and<\/span> satellite images. A US congressional commission on China called it the \u201cthe largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world today\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n