“When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop!’ When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible.”
German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s observation on the political apathy that engulfed Germany in the 1930s resonates with 21st century survivors of the Chinese state’s war against Uyghurs in its northwestern heartland, known by exiles as East Turkestan.
Germany’s slide into fascism brought book burnings and arrests of “undesirables.” It lead step by step to antisemitism, concentration camps, torture, and death. That brutal history echoes today in Beijing’s campaign against the Turkic peoples of its western regions – and in the silence of a deaf world. Only those who have experienced the terror first-hand and survived to tell the tale can hope to describe its full horrors.
Kalbinur Sidik (formerly Romanized as Qelbinur Sidik) is one such rare eyewitness to what many nations have termed a genocide. Her ordeal as a teacher inside the camps drove her to the brink of collapse. She escaped in 2019 ostensibly for medical treatment, hoping to reunite with her daughter in the Netherlands and seek asylum. Speaking out became her path to healing.
She told The Diplomat that “silence is not an option.” The faces of captives in her class have haunted her to this day. Since leaving, her mission has been to give voice to their silent cries.
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Her memoir, “Heart Full of Light” – a title reflecting the meaning of her name, Kalbinur – is full of horror and sadness but also memory, dignity and resistance. It is a cry against erasure and a wake-up call to a world that has not been listening.
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Every inch of the compound was monitored. If someone moved, a screen flashed red and zoomed in. “It was impossible not to compare them to animals in cages,” Sidik wrote of her students. “There was nowhere to hide. For them, or for me.”
The specter of organ harvesting hung over everything. Healthy young prisoners disappeared. Across Xinjiang authorities collected biodata from everyone aged 16-65. Mandatory DNA tests, bloods, iris scans, voice and gait recordings filled vast data banks, many believed for organ matching. Research later identified Saudis and Gulf Arabs traveling to eastern China for halal organs.
“Alive we were worthless, dead, and cut up, our organs were worth a ransom,” Sidik wrote.
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They have executed government official for taking bribes as well. But they deliver punishment up to and including death for things like cheating on health audits or cutting corners that result in people getting sick and dying from tainted foods etc
Once again it’s always who you know. If you’re connected enough or have enough compromising info on the right people then justice can always be avoided. Someone trying to be slick without the connections or leverage can always get pinched. Doesn’t matter the system, the game is the same. Ever so often there’s a sacrificial lamb so to speak. That’s just for show amongst the real movers and shakers and a statement to their competition to back off.
How many millionaires and billionaires has the US or Europe put to death for their crimes?
I know you want to say the systems are equal, but the evidence is that they are not.
The US doesn’t punish such things with death typically. Maybe life in prison without parole. I will say US politicians seem much cheaper to buy.
I think there might be only 2 people in US history that were billionaires and ended up in prison for life and both of them were for financial schemes that ultimately harmed a lot of very rich and powerful people. The Madoff story is pretty telling. He targeted the richest institutions and people, but a bunch of feeder funds target thousands of “middle class” families. Those families got screwed by Madoff, along with the rich. When the government stepped in to prosecute the fraud, they made sure to fix the financial situations of the richest individuals and institutions, but left the middle class out in the cold and those effected never recovered.
Because unlike China, the US government was founded by and for the richest and wealthiest elites in the land.