In a chilling interview with ITV News, a Uyghur doctor shared that when she lived in China, she participated in 500 to 600 operations that included abortions and removing women’s wombs. The doctor said that her actions, which included killing infants right after they were born, were part of how the Chinese government is conducting a Uyghur genocide.
“In 20 years, I participated in at least five to six hundred operations, including forced contraception, forced abortion, and sterilization, and forced removal of wombs,” said the doctor, who asked not to be named. She is now living in Turkey, where around 50,000 Uyghur Muslims have taken refuge.
Conducting a Uyghur Genocide: ‘I feel such regret’
“We’d go village to village,” she said, “gather all the women, and herd them onto tractors. Young women were fitted onto contraceptive devices. Pregnant women would have to have an abortion, then sterilization. We even inserted birth control implants into women’s upper arms to prevent pregnancy. This is how the government persecuted that we were women.”
The doctor said she had participated in killing full-term babies, as well as children who were newly born. She remembers at least one situation when a baby was still moving when it was thrown away. “The clear intention was ethnic cleansing,” she said. “We were asked to believe this was part of the Communist Party’s population control plan. At the time, I thought it was my job. I felt sorry to see the killing of a small baby, but I never fully realized its a damage to the nation. Now, I feel such regret.”
While the doctor cannot change her past, she is now using her skills to help other Uyghur women who have fled China. The doctor removes the contraceptive devices the government forced the women to get and provides medical care so that they can again bear children. Because many of the women do not speak Turkish, they are grateful to be able to see a Uyghur doctor.
One Uyghur woman now living in Turkey told ITV News that she decided to conceal her second pregnancy after her first baby was “forcibly taken from her body.”
“I dressed very differently to hide the bump,” she said. “I pulled in my stomach. I felt so scared and sad. I couldn’t tell anyone my feelings. Nowhere in the world should someone need to hide their baby to save it.”
Corroboration of the Uyghur Genocide
The women’s testimonies are corroborated by other information, including an account from a Uyghur obstetrician also now living in Turkey and data gathered by Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. The government’s efforts to control the Uyghur birth rate are only a part of the violations Chinese authorities are committing against the Uyghur people, who live primarily in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). For the past several years, reports have emerged that, in the name of preventing terrorism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has interned anywhere between one to three million Uyghur Muslims in so-called “re-education” camps. In reality, these are more like concentration camps where people are brainwashed, tortured, and put to forced labor.
What you’re watching is Uigher Muslims escorted off of trains headed off to forced labor camps. All of their heads are shaved. A second holocaust is happening right now, in the age of technology, and we are mostly silent.pic.twitter.com/F83ZUMEeEV
— Griffin Gulledge (@griffingulledge) July 15, 2020
In a webinar organized by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) at the end of August, activists stressed the danger China’s actions pose to the world when it comes to human rights and religious freedom. ERLC president Dr. Russell Moore said, “I think we’re dealing with very high ambitions towards evil ends here, which means we cannot have low ambitions for speaking to human ideals from the other side.”
The webinar’s panelists emphasized that economic pressure is the only tactic that will have any impact on the CCP. USCIRF Commissioner Nury Turkel, a U.S-educated Uyghur lawyer, urged viewers not to spend their money on products made in China. Because the CCP is using Uyghurs for forced labor, the global supply chain is polluted. Said Turkel, “Please do your due diligence. Please stop buying any cotton or textile products coming from China.”
Even though China has been effectively using its wealth to buy the world’s silence about the Uyghur genocide, as more people speak out, some are listening. Clothing retailer H&M just announced it will no longer use its yarn factory in the XUAR because of concerns over forced labor. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that customs agents will stop accepting certain goods (including computer parts, cotton, apparel, and hair products) from specific Chinese companies, all of which are in the XUAR.
