Written evidence submitted by Justice For All (XIN0054)

 

Justice For All is a non-profit organization based in Chicago, USA with staff and volunteers in Washington DC, New York, Boston, Texas, Canada, and other locations. The organization, which was incorporated in 1999, grew out of advocacy efforts on the human rights abuses experienced in Bosnia and later Kosovo during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. At that time, it was instrumental in shaping the discourse around the ‘genocide’ debate and campaigned to declare rape as a war crime in international law.

 

Save Uighur is a project of Justice For All. It focuses on education and advocacy for the rights of Uyghur and other Turkic people under Chinese occupation. 

 

The following is the testimony of Almas Nizamidin, a Uyghur currently resident in Australia whose pregnant wife was detained by Chinese authorities over three years ago. Almas outlined his story and the hardships he is undergoing in order to achieve family reunification in an interview conducted by Justice For All. His story is characteristic of the challenges that Uyghurs are currently facing, and provides insight into the challenges that Uyghurs are forced to contend with due to the ongoing organised campaign of detention carried out by the Government of the People’s Republic of China. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Testimony of Almas Nizamidin

A group of people posing for the camera Description automatically generated

Almas Nizamidin (centre) pictured with his wife (left) and mother (right) as he departs from Ürümqi airport in March 2017.

 

    1. Almas Nizamidin has not seen or heard from his wife in over three and a half years. Almas' wife, Bizainafu Abudourexit, has been incarcerated in Xinjiang Women’s Prison, sentenced to seven years imprisonment for “assembling a crowd to disturb social order”, a charge which Almas insists is baseless. The 29-year-old, now resident in Australia, spends his days appealing to the Australian and Chinese authorities for her release, but to no avail. 

 

    1. Almas was born and raised in Ürümqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China. An ethnic Uyghur, his parents became fearful for his safety in the aftermath of the 2009 Ürümqi Riots, in which Uyghur protesters clashed with Chinese authorities and police. With the ethnic tensions and the police crackdown on the Uyghur population that followed, his parents saved up money to allow him to claim asylum in Australia. He did not return to China until after he gained Australian citizenship in 2014, hoping that an Australian passport would grant him protection from the political persecution and harassment from Chinese authorities that Uyghurs in Xinjiang have come to expect. 

 

    1. Whilst Almas was in Australia, he kept in contact with his high school sweetheart, Bizainafu, and their love blossomed. From 2009 to 2013, she completed a degree in Health Science from City College, Wuhan University of Science and Technology. She then went abroad from 2013 to 2015, she studied Arabic and the Quran at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Almas admired her diligence and dedication as a student. Once Bizainafu completed her studies in Egypt, she and Almas married in Ürümqi, in what was his first trip back to China in 6 years. They then began the application for an Australian Partner visa, which required attestations of character. Bizainafu returned to Egypt to obtain an attestation from the Chinese Embassy in Cairo stating her sole purpose of residence in Egypt was her studies, and a certificate from the Egyptian Ministry of Interior stating that she had no criminal record and acted lawfully during her entire stay in Egypt. After obtaining these documents, she returned to Xinjiang, where she took care of her parents and worked at a women’s health helpline. In the latter half of 2016, Bizainafu spent six months in the United States, taking care of her father-in-law, who had relocated over fear of increasingly restrictive policies in Xinjiang. 

 

    1. After returning to Xinjiang from the United States, Bizainafu mainly spent her time studying English, taking care of her parents, and waiting for the approval of her Australian Partner visa. In February of 2017, Almas visited her from Australia as a Valentine’s Day surprise. Almas and his wife were overjoyed to learn that she was pregnant, confirming it with a home pregnancy test. Shortly after, Almas returned to Australia due to work obligations. 

 

    1. On the 29th of March, 2017, Bizainafu was seven weeks pregnant and on her way to an Obstetrician’s office for a routine pregnancy check-up when she received a panicked phone call from her mother. The police were at Bizainafu’s house and demanded she come home immediately. Bizainafu complied, forgoing her appointment to return home. Once home, her family saw the police shove a bag over her head, force her into a car, and drive off. 

 

    1. The next day, when Almas attempted to call his wife from Australia, she hung up on him without answering. He attempted to call several more times, but could not get through to her. He then called his distraught mother-in-law, who recounted the events of the day before. Almas immediately booked a flight to Ürümqi in order to find out what happened to his wife. He arrived the next day and went to several local police stations in search of answers. Almas pleaded to know where and why his wife had been taken, but was consistently told that the whereabouts and reasons for the detention of his wife were unknown, It was only after a police officer solicited a bribe from him that Almas learned that his wife was taken to Aksu, a city one thousand kilometres away on the other side of Xinjiang province. 

 

    1. Almas flew to Aksu, in the hopes that he could learn what happened to his wife. He again visited several police stations in an attempt to find out why she had been detained and do whatever he could to have her released. After being turned away by several authorities, an officer of the People's Armed Police Force told him that the reason for his wife’s detention was a state secret, and that she would soon face trial in Ürümqi. Almas returned to Ürümqi in the hopes that he could appeal for his wife’s release. 

 

    1. Back in Ürümqi, Almas tried hiring a lawyer for his wife's trial. After contacting several lawyers in Ürümqi, he was met with continuous denial. They stated his wife was being tried for a political crime, she did not have the right of legal representation. Devastated by this, Almas repeatedly attempted to contact local police in order to ascertain with which crime Bizainafu was charged. However, On April 14th, he received a certified statement from the Bahuliang Police Office that attested that Bizainafu had “no criminal record” and had therefore been living as an honest and law-abiding citizen. 

 

    1. He attempted to contact the Australian Embassy in Beijing, calling them in the hope that they would help remediate this dire situation. The person who answered the phone was a Chinese national hired by the Australian embassy, and was unsympathetic to Almas' plight. They declared that “China would never do something unjust” and refused to recognise the situation or provide Almas or his wife consular assistance. 

 

    1. Bizainafu was arbitrarily detained for 3 months without charge or trial. During this time, Almas had not been allowed to contact her. He was left with no idea of her condition, or even the reason she was being detained. Several times, Almas waited outside the detention camp in which she was being held, in the hope that he would be able to see her, or that perhaps she would see his car and that it would let her know that he was trying his best to reunite them. The police threatened that if he continued to park outside the detention camp that he would be arrested. 

 

    1. Finally, at the end of June 2017, Almas' wife was tried and sentenced in a mass trial along with dozens of other women, all charged at once, none of whom had been allowed legal representation. The day after his wife’s sentencing, Almas was called into the local police station and was told he had 24 hours to leave China or else he would be arrested. He was also told by police that he should tell no-one about his wife’s detention. 

 

    1. Under threat of arrest, Almas left China for Australia where he contacted the Australian government to try and petition the Chinese government for his wife’s release. It is only through the pressure that the Australian government placed on Chinese authorities that Almas finally learned of his wife’s alleged crime, “assembling a crowd to disturb social order”. Almas claims that this charge is groundless and a blatant fabrication. He contends that not only did he receive an attestation from local police proving that his wife has no criminal record, but that she also is quite shy and introverted by nature and would never assemble a crowd to disturb social order. Almas believes the actual reason his wife was detained was due to her studies in Egypt, and that her detention is part of a wider suppression of religious freedom in Xinjiang by the Chinese government. 

 

    1. With the help of the Australian government, Almas was also able to learn that medical examinations of his wife undertaken by the Chinese authorities claimed that she was not pregnant at the time of her imprisonment, a claim that Almas disputes. Distraught over the loss of his unborn child, Almas does not know whether it was the stress of the situation that caused a miscarriage, mistreatment during her detention, or a forced termination of the pregnancy.

 

    1. In late 2017, Almas reached out to Amnesty International hoping that human rights advocacy could raise international pressure on the Chinese government to release his wife. He released several statements in cooperation with the organisation that urged the Chinese government to release his wife from her imprisonment. 

 

    1. Not long after Almas went public with the story of his wife’s detainment, his mother was also detained. She had just returned from staying with Almas' father in the United States for six months. Almas' father feared that her return to China would lead to her detention, but she felt she had a duty of care to their elderly parents still resident in Xinjiang. Almas' mother was detained by Chinese authorities in January of 2018. As with his wife, no one in Almas' family was notified about the detention or charge. It was only when Almas' family contacted their grandparents that they learned of Almas' mother’s detention. 

 

    1. Almas again contacted the Australian government for assistance, and again, it was only through the pressure of the Australian government that Almas was able to learn of the charge against his mother. She was detained for “disturbing the social order”, the same charge that had been brought against his wife. Again, like his wife, neither Almas nor any members of his family were able to contact his mother during her detention. However, unlike his wife, Almas' mother was never tried, sentenced, or sent to prison. She was instead arbitrarily detained in a concentration camp for 22 months. Before her detainment, Almas' mother was a retired mathematics teacher with no criminal record. She was 51 years old at the time of her detainment. Almas believes that the reason the Chinese government detained his mother was due to his public advocacy for the release of his wife, as well as her recent visit to his father in the United States. 

 

    1. During her time in the detention camps, Almas' mother was subject to ‘re-education’. She faced indoctrination with educational material regarding the accomplishments of the Chinese Communist Party. She also was forced to work in a factory, which the Chinese state claims to be ‘vocational training’. After 22 months in a camp, Almas' mother was released to home confinement. She is no longer allowed to leave the country and remains under police surveillance. All communications between Almas and his mother are monitored by the Chinese state, and they must be cautious that their correspondence does not lead to his mother’s returning to the camps. 

 

    1. When asked if he fears his advocacy would lead to retribution from the Chinese Authorities, he says “They have taken my wife, my child, and my mother from me. What else can they do to me?”. He prays every day for his family’s well-being and freedom, in the hopes that they can one day live with him in peace in Australia. 

 

 

 

 

 

October 2020