According to a former detective turned whistleblower, Jiang, Chinese detention camps have been used for torture against ethnic Uyghurs. China has denied these allegations for years. According to him, Chinese authorities have tortured Uyghur Muslim minority members using horrific tactics. He spoke to CNN for three hours about these tactics.
He was interviewed in Europe, where he is currently in exile. According to a former Chinese police investigator, ‘We seized (them) all forcibly overnight. You had to arrest these hundreds of individuals if there were hundreds of people in one county in this region’. During his interrogation of detainees in police detention centers, Jiang, who is now retired, expressed his desire to beat the detainees ‘until they were bruised and swollen,’ leaving them to cry on the floor.
The former investigator said that shackling individuals to a metal or wooden ‘tiger chair’ (chairs designed to immobilize suspects), hanging them from the ceiling, and electrocuting them were among the tactics used during his time in Xinjiang. CNN reports that inmates were frequently deprived of food and water and forced to stay awake for days on end. Jiang said everyone uses different methods. Some even use wrecking bars or iron chains with locks. ‘Police would walk on a suspect’s face to get him to confess,’ Jiang said. He was involved in arresting hundreds of prisoners, and he believes that ‘none’ of them committed any crime.
Jiang’s accusations cannot be independently verified by CNN, but some elements of his recollections ring true for two Uyghurs CNN spoke with during this investigation. The interrogation process in Xinjiang is physically brutal for all new inmates, whether men, women, or children as young as 14. Jiang recalled this while living in the region. In June, Amnesty International published a 160-page study titled ‘The Chinese Government’s Mass Internment, Torture, and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang’ based on interviews with more than 50 former detainees.
According to the US State Department, the Chinese government has imprisoned up to 2 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang detention camps since 2017. According to the study, China claims the camps are vocational and aimed at fighting terrorism and separatism, and has repeatedly denied allegations of human rights abuses in the region. Jiang claimed he was ‘disappointed’ with the Chinese Communist Party before his experience in Xinjiang due to rising levels of corruption.
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