Testimony 1: Berikbol Muqatai, a Kazakhstan citizen since 2008. (brother)
Testimony 2|3|4|5|6|7|8|13: Akikat Kaliolla, a musician from Dorbiljin County, now a Kazakhstan citizen. (son)
Testimony 9*: Akikat Kaliolla, as reported by Gene A. Bunin. (son)
Testimony 10: Akikat Kaliolla, as reported by Agence France-Presse. (son)
Testimony 11: Akikat Kaliolla, as reported by Global Voices. (son)
Testimony 12: Akikat Kaliolla, as reported by The Believer. (son)
Testimony 14: Venera Muqatai, a Party member from Dorbiljin County, and wife of Qaliolla Tursyn. She is a survivor of the mass incarcerations in Xinjiang, having spent around nine months in a camp. (the victim)
Testimony 15: Akikat Kaliolla, as reported by National Public Radio. (son)
Address: 003 Second East Alley, South Progress Road, Dorbiljin Municipality, Dorbiljin County, Xinjiang (新疆额敏县额敏镇前进南路东二巷003号).Venera Muqataiqyzy. [Testimony 9: according to her son, she is a Party member.]
Address: Dorbiljin (Emin) County, Targabatai (Tacheng) Region, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China.
current location
[Presumably in Tacheng.]Believed to be at home in Dorbiljin.
chronology of detention(s)
She was arrested in mid-March 2018, not long after the arrest of her husband on March 15. According to Akikat, his mother was detained after going to the local authorities to ask the reason for her husband's and sons' detentions.
She was first taken to a concentration camp in Turgun Village, then transferred to the thirteenth floor of the People's Hospital in Dorbiljin County because of her high blood pressure, and then transferred to a heating company (热力公司) that had been converted into a camp. She was released from camp at the end of 2018, as partially confirmed by the phone call she and her two other sons had with Akikat on January 27, 2019.
While there was a report from someone who had been in the region that they were once more detained after that, it seems that, in general, they have been released to some sort of house arrest or community surveillance, but have been unable to come to Kazakhstan to see Akikat.Testimony 4: March 15, 2018.
Testimony 8: According to Akikat, his mother was detained after going to the local authorities to asking the reason for her husband's and sons' detention. [Possible that this was not all on March 15, but still fairly close together.] She was first taken to a concentration camp in Tu'ergun Village, then transferred to the No. 13 People's hospital in Emin County because of her high blood pressure, and then transferred to a heating company (热力公司) that had been converted into a camp. She was released from camp at the end of 2018.
suspected and/or official reason(s) for detention
The family appears to have been targeted following Venera's husband, Qaliolla Tursyn, writing an appeal to the authorities in Beijing (with regard to the local authorities beating a man to death).
More concretely, her son believes that she was detained for demanding why her husband and sons were arrested.Likely because of her husband's legal complaints (see entry 167).
Testimony 8: she was detained when demanding why her husband and sons were arrested.
last reported status
Appears to be under some sort of residential/community surveillance, and is unable to leave the country to see her son in Kazakhstan.
Sometime in/before August 2020, the victim, together with her two sons, made a video statement from their home, in which they said that they had been wronged, adding that they were leaving their fates in Akikat's hands, and asking that he look for them if they vanished. Akikat has had no contact with them since August 16, 2020.
She suffers from high blood pressure and may have suffered some injuries from the time spent in camp.Testimony 4: Judging from a phone call on January 27, 2019 (between Akikat and his family), his mother and his two younger brothers have been released (though likely to house arrest).
Testimony 5: According to someone who recently came to Kazakhstan from China, the family was once more taken to camp not long after the phone call.
Testimony 6: The victim is still under house arrest.
Testimony 7: A camera may have been installed in the victim's home.
Testimony 14: the victim, together with her two sons, made a video statement from their home, in which they said that they had been wronged, adding that they were leaving their fates in Akikat's hands, and asking that he look for them if they vanished.
She also suffers from high blood pressure and may have suffered some injuries from the time spent in camp.
Testimony 16: Akikat has not had any news of his family since August 16, 2020.
how testifier(s) learned of victim's situation
Akikat heard the news from several sources, some of which cannot be revealed but have been validated by shahit.biz.
On January 27, 2019, Akikat was able to partially confirm their situation via a direct phone call.
A lot of the news Akikat has obtained from people who had been in Dorbiljin County during this time and were later able to come to Kazakhstan.
The victim's video statement is an eyewitness testimony.Testimony 4: They had a phone call on January 27, 2019.
Testimony 8: from people in Emin who came to Kazakhstan.
additional information
According to what Akikat heard, his mother was considered a "dangerous person" while in camp, with people not allowed to talk to her.
In a mid-2020 call to Akikat, Venera told him that internet regulators had come to their home with an official notice, allowing her and her sons Parasat and Muqyiat to call Akikat via the internet. Venera said that a government official also gave the family three scripts [one for each] that they were supposed to read from. She told Akikat that she was scared, under pressure, and that she deviated from her script. She reportedly told Akikat: "I was supposed to say: my child, you're very worried about us, but no matter what you do, think twice. If you have a complaint, take it up with China. You must trust the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party."
In a mid-2020 call to Akikat Qaliolla (the testifier), Venera Muqatai (166) told Akikat Qaliolla that internet regulators came to her home with an official notice, allowing Venera Muqatai (166), Parasat Qaliolla (164) and Muqyiat Qaliolla (165) to use the internet to call Akikat Qaliolla again. Venera Muqatai (166) said that a government official also gave the family three scripts [one each], from which they were supposed to read. Venera Muqatai (166) told Akikat Qaliolla that she was scared, under pressure, and that she deviated from her script. She reportedly said [trans.]: "I was supposed to say, my child, you're very worried about us, but no matter what you do, think twice. If you have a complaint, take it up with China. You must trust the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party."
I’ll tell you a story that describes my father well. I met and fell in love with a girl from Kazakhstan. We planned to move there together and get married. I was living in China and we were both teaching at the music school in Ürümqi where we’d met. She was famous, actually, a famous traveling musician, at least in the world of traditional Kazakh music. I’d admired her long before we met. It was a dream to have such a girlfriend!
Before the wedding, when it came time to celebrate the qyz uzatu, the girl’s farewell, we were still living in China. My father is old—he’s seventy now—and in bad health, so in the end he couldn’t come to Kazakhstan for the wedding. But he attended the first wedding, as we call it, the girl’s farewell, and as a gift for my wife-to-be he brought two small books on China’s Main Law and Criminal Law. Now you should memorize the laws of China, he told her. You are married to a Chinese citizen. Both of you must know the laws of China and Kazakhstan. You see, he was so confident in the law, in the Chinese judicial system, but in the end he experienced the full and exact nature of that system—he got it exactly.
Before he retired, my father had worked for the Ministry of Culture. He was an educated man living in a place where the literacy rate was still low, and Chinese script in particular was not widely known. This was in Tacheng, which Kazakhs call Tarbagatai. In retirement, he spent his days helping people fill out papers in Chinese. Mostly, they were writing complaints. He wasn’t a lawyer but he knew the laws very well, so he helped people file complaints and petitions with local authorities. That’s just how he was.
With us, he was strict but loving. Education was everything to him. After I was born, he never spent a night outside the home. He was at my side while I studied; my brothers too. He sent the three of us to the Chinese-language school. You have to study, he would tell us. You have to learn calligraphy. He taught us both Kazakh and Chinese script. He devoted himself entirely to raising us. When I first showed an interest in music, he bought the family a piano. If he didn’t have the money, he borrowed it. We never heard a word about money in the house. We were always provided for. As I got older, my father bought me music-studio equipment—nothing big or fancy, but it was still an expense. We weren’t rich. Somehow he got the money.
I left home when I was nineteen and drifted, as musicians do: Ürümqi, Beijing, Shanghai. In 2014, I met my wife, and we came to Kazakhstan looking for jobs. My father had never traveled anywhere, but when I told him we were moving, he accepted it. You know your own mind, he told me. It’s your life. As I said, he didn’t attend my wedding, but when my child was born, in 2016, he came, even though he was already in bad health. He had no teeth, and his legs were fractured everywhere. He suffered from cirrhosis, heart disease, arthritis. He could barely walk. Even now, I don’t know his feelings. Did they want to move to Kazakhstan? Stay in China? Should I have suggested it? I know they were afraid. If they died in Kazakhstan, would their relatives be able to attend the funeral? I regret that I never asked my father if he wanted to move here, but people in our town weren’t used to speaking openly about Kazakhstan. It’s considered almost treasonous in China to discuss it—to talk about leaving. I only ever talked with my two brothers. I urged them to come here. As for my elder sister, she’s married to a party official. Her husband doesn’t want to move.
In March 2018, I had just become a Kazakh citizen. Every day, I’d send my mother a picture of our daughter on WeChat. That was how we kept in touch. Gradually, her messages became less frequent. Of course I’d heard that Xinjiang was getting difficult. I suspected this was the reason for her silences. That month, she removed me from her WeChat contact list altogether. I asked my brother why. I called him on video chat. He was visibly upset but couldn’t cry. It’s difficult here, he said. Not like before.
I was afraid local authorities might not treat my father well. He was a thorn in their side, helping neighbors write complaints. Before I hung up, I told my brother to let me know if anything happened.
The complaint that finally did him in was about a murder. A man named Zhumakeldi Akai was beaten to death by security guards at a reeducation camp. They took his body to his home to be buried. He had awful wounds. His wife came to my father. She wanted to make a complaint. They killed him, she said. She begged him to help. So my father wrote a letter to Beijing, but the letter never left the prefecture. The local authorities confiscated it. They paid my father a visit. So, they said, you want to blame us for this death before our superiors?
This information came to me through different channels. I’ll tell you exactly how, but I don’t want you to write it down. I don’t want the authorities to close these channels, and I don’t want the people helping me to get in trouble. In short, my family members were all detained right after my father wrote this complaint about the murdered neighbor. Someone—I don’t want to say who—told me soon after it happened.
But even before I was told, the night before their arrest, I had a bad dream. My heart was aching. I saw security guards following me, trying to catch me, and in the dream I had a thought: What is going on at my house? When I woke up, I knew something had happened.
As soon as I got the news, I called my sister in Ürümqi. Even with her husband’s status, she didn’t know anything. But she called our aunt and confirmed they were detained. I began to gather information from different sources. I called everyone I knew. In some cases, I don’t want to say their names. They’re still back there. These days, everyone knows about the weather code, so no one uses it. If I said that it was getting warmer, those listening would know what I was talking about. I have a different code. I don’t want to say what it is. But I have a code I use.
Eventually I got the whole picture from different people, some of whom had been detained with them, others who lived nearby or who heard secondhand. First, they detained my father and my two brothers. They did it without any warrant. They just disappeared. My mother went to complain to the local district authorities. She asked them for an explanation. The officials were happy she’d come. Ah, good, you’ve brought yourself in, they said, and detained her too.
After several months, my mother and brothers were released from the camps, but my father was taken somewhere else. He vanished. In the absence of any news, my wife compiled four invitation letters—the letters you write to bring family members into Kazakhstan—and sent them to the local council in my father’s village, if only to get some information about his fate. This January, we finally got a response: a letter stating that in October 2018 my father had been convicted to twenty years in prison.
Now I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. We didn’t get any information about the trial or any crimes he had committed. Not even my mother was aware of his sentence. All I know is that he’s no longer in the local prison where he was being held. I expect he was transferred to a place for people with long prison sentences. But he can’t eat, as I’ve said. Even in the local prison, they served him only stale bread and hot water. People who shared a cell with him there told me they would wet the bread in the water and feed it to him. He was handcuffed; he has no teeth. Without their help, he would have starved to death. [Despairingly] I don’t know—probably he already died.
I’ll tell you something else. My father was tortured. I can’t tell you where I got this information. It came from a prisoner who was released, and who managed to escape to Kazakhstan. There are many people like this. Most of them are simply in hiding. They don’t reveal what’s happening, because they’re afraid. This particular informant lives in Kazakhstan but won’t do an interview himself because his daughters are still in Xinjiang. I communicate mostly with people like this, often people I know personally from back in China. I know I can trust them. I don’t want to spread rumors or exaggerations. First, we should find the facts, what the reality is.
Now my brothers and mother are home, but a camera is installed in their house, watching what they are doing. I know they suffered in the camps. I am ready to die for them, and for my father too. I’m not sleeping. I cry. Men aren’t supposed to cry, but I cry. Twenty years? It’s a death sentence. And why? If there was an error in the last complaint he helped write—show me the error! My father was arguing that this man’s death was against Chinese law, which was not written by me or my father or any Kazakh. It was written by the government. It should not be subverted. Law is not like physics or mathematics—it’s not confusing. What it says is clear. We can understand it. It should be followed. My father did not break the law. He was following the law. It’s the authorities who are violating it. And now my family is back in China, but my father is nowhere.
miscellaneous media evidence
Context: Kazakhstan-based musician Akikat Kaliolla's parents and two brothers were all disappeared in March 2018, soon after his father sent a formal letter of complaint to Beijing over the local authorities' alleged murder of a young man critical of the mass incarcerations and local corruption. While the father was allegedly sentenced to 20 years, the mother and two brothers were sent to camp and later released, to remain under close surveillance. In 2020, Akikat's mother video-chatted with him and told him what had happened. Later, she and her two sons also made a short video where, holding up their ID cards, they spoke about their situation frankly. Translation as follows.
(first video)
Venera (mother): Muqiat suffered too. And Parasat. Parasat experienced the hardships there. I heard him screaming when they beat him up.
Akikat: Parasat's voice?
Venera: I thought I would die. I fainted that day. They put heart medication down my throat and took me to my room there, dragging me by the shoulders, and then left. I spent the entire night lying like that. I couldn't come to myself. I wanted to talk, but my tongue wouldn't move. My son, this is the kind of hardship we've experienced. I've told you this today, and so I might disappear tomorrow for having done so. I don't care, even if I do disappear. They are putting pressure on Qaliolla, and he's being falsely accused. They are taking revenge on him. They've illegally taken him to the educational training center and locked him up in a solitary room, beating him until he fainted. He was taken back [to his cell] afterwards, with his injuries. We heard about all this. The people who stayed with him saw it, and told me about it. That's it. This is how terrible our situation is now. My son, stay strong. You’re looking for us, and don't stop looking for your dad. This is what our life is like, this is the kind of pressure we're living under. That's all, my son.
(second video)
Venera: Today, I told my son Akikat of all the hardships that we've been through. This isn't some state secret - all of us were wronged. So, today the three of us have put our lives into Akikat's hands. Son, we are in your hands. We have been wronged.
Muqyiat (older brother): If we suddenly disappear, you have to look for us. Who knows what they might do to us...
Parasat (younger brother): Everything we've gone through is the genuine truth. The criminals must be imprisoned.
Turgun Village Camp
Heating Company Camp
