ChinaAid welcomes Gulzira Auelkhan, knowing that the world needs to hear her story

7-year-old Bayan bounces with joy. “Welcome to Texas… and freedom.”
(Photo: ChinaAid)
(Midland, TX—Feb. 09, 2021) Today, February 9, as ChinaAid welcomes Gulzira Auelkhan and her family to the United States (US) where authorities have granted them humanitarian parole status, we know that the world needs to hear her story—the message Ms. Gulzira bravely shares. Ms. Gulzira, a 41-year-old Kazakh female formerly detained for 16 months in three separate Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) concentration camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, tells how she experienced unspeakable emotional, physical, and spiritual torture as she routinely witnessed a horrific system of organized rape and forced prostitution.

Born in Xinjiang, Ms. Gulzira, moved to Kazakhstan in 2014 where she lived until July 2017 when she returned to China to visit her hometown. Three days after her arrival, CCP authorities arbitrarily arrested her. After Chinese police interrogated Ms. Gulzira, they accused her of having “improper thoughts” and sentenced her to 15 days of “reeducation.” Authorities extended this time to a year, however, when the head of police forged her signature to a confession without her knowledge.

If Ms. Gulzirae would remain silent and never speak the things she saw and witnessed in China’s concentration camps, the Yining County Party secretary claimed, she would be given 250,000 yuan [38,830 USD]. Ms. Gulzirae said:

I rejected the money because what I long for is freedom. When I returned to Kazakhstan, I wanted to let others know what happened because I am not the only one who has been detained in the concentration camp. Many people like me have been [and still are] suffering. We all need money, but if I take the money [and remain silent], I will lose freedom.
Ms. Gulzira recounts that CCP guards marked her and her time in the reeducation camps with extreme surveillance, emotional abuse, and physical beatings. In a recent BBC report, Ms. Gulzira revealed that security officers forced her to strip female prisoners naked, handcuffing them to a bed and then leaving them alone in the black room* with Chinese men. Unable to intervene, even now Ms. Gulzira hates the atrocious memories of Chinese men who “would pay to have their pick of the prettiest young inmates.” Nevertheless, those victims and others persecuted for their religious beliefs need someone to speak up for them. —The world needs to hear the unspeakable.

CCP authorities initially detained Ms. Gulzira in prison camps on July 15, 2017, and released her on October 7, 2018. As authorities forced her to remain in Xinjiang, they forced her to work in a glove factory 10 days after her release.

In January 2019, CCP officials allowed her to return to Kazakhstan and reunite with her family.

Following Ms. Gulzira’s release, ChinaAid and our partner organization Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights helped relocate her family to a third country. We also provided medical treatment and other recovery support for her and her family.

Currently, the CCP imprisons an estimated one to three million Uyghurs, Kazarks, and other Turkic ethnic minorities in “reeducation camps” like the ones Ms. Gulzira survived. Reasons for arbitrary imprisonment may be as simple as growing a beard, wearing a veil, or having a home with a “dense religious atmosphere.” On January 4, 2021, citing evidence of forced sterilizations, torture, and an intricate forced labor system, the US Department of State declared the gross human rights abuses the CCP commits against Uyghurs as genocide.

Regarding Ms. Gulzira’s escape from the CCP’s heinous reeducation camps to the US, Dr. Bob Fu, founder, and president of ChinaAid, said:

We are thrilled to be able to see Ms. Gulzira, her husband, and their 7-year-old daughter arrive safely in the US. ChinaAid’s sponsorship and the State Department’s facilitation tremendously helped secure her family’s safe arrival. Ms. Gulzira’s courage in sharing the cruel treatment she and others experienced in CCP’s reeducation camps reveals her exemplary resilience. After years of separation from her loved ones and suffering unspeakable emotional, physical, and spiritual torture, I pray she will find safety, healing, hope, and a new life of freedom in west Texas—for herself and her family.

 

Bob Fu, Deana & two leaders of ChinaAid Kazark partner org. with Ms. Gulzira and her family.
(Photo: ChinaAid)
*room without cameras

ChinaAid will continue to work with government agencies and like-minded NGO groups to protect and rescue victims of the CCP’s war on religious freedom as we walk with the persecuted faithful.

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Hope deferred makes the heart sick, 
But when the desire comes, 
it is a tree of life.
                                                 
                                    ~ Proverbs 13:12 (NKJV)




China Aid exposes abuses in order to stand in solidarity with the persecuted and promote religious freedom, human rights, and rule of law. If you wish to partner with us in helping those persecuted by the Chinese government, please click the button below to make a charitable donation.


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ChinaAid welcomes Gulzira Auelkhan, knowing that the world needs to hear her story

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