The article below was published by The Diplomat, photo credit: The Diplomat

When Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh Chinese citizen, fled to Kazakhstan in 2018, the world knew little about what was happening inside Xinjiang. 

What the Chinese government called “education” or “training” centers more closely resembled internment or concentration camps, and Sayragul knew it. She had been taken from her job at a kindergarten and made to work in one such camp, teaching Chinese to detainees. Her family had earlier fled to Kazakhstan, which generally welcomed ethnic Kazakhs with quick paths to citizenship. But Sayragul was prevented from joining her family for years as she toiled in the camps, witness to the terrors therein. 

In April 2018, she made a daring escape and crossed the border with Kazakhstan. One ordeal was over and another had begun: Since she’d crossed the border with false documents, Sayragul was arrested and put on trial. Although she was convinced, she was released with a six-month suspended sentence and not deported back to China. Although she applied to for asylum in Kazakhstan, Kazakh authorities – caught between their obligations to ethnic Kazakhs and their economic and political relations with China – declined to grant it. 

Eventually, Sayragul and her family left Kazakhstan, settling in Sweden, which granted them asylum. 

In the years since, China claims its “education” and “training” centers have closed; a number of governments, including the United States in 2021, have called China’s actions in Xinjiang a “genocide.” 

Sayragul, elected in 2023 to the vice presidency of the East Turkestan Government in Exile, does not believe the world has stopped caring about Xinjiang, but told The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz in an interview that “global attention is often diverted by other international crises.”

“China uses every means necessary to hide its crimes, intensifying its propaganda and spreading misinformation. However, no matter what they do, they cannot hide the genocide and crimes against humanity,” she said.

Your story has been widely reported. It was one of the very first direct accounts that reached the world about the situation in Xinjiang. But for readers who don’t know, can you tell us how you ended up in China’s internment camps?

The genocide carried out by China against the Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in East Turkestan was a long-premeditated plan. To achieve this, they employed various brutal methods: forced sterilizations and abortions beginning in the early 1990s; the destruction of our mother tongue by closing Kazakh and Uyghur schools since 2003 under the “bilingual education” pretext; and the decimation of our religious freedom and traditional culture after the 2009 Urumqi Massacre. 

In November 2017, they forcibly took me to a concentration camp. At that time, I was serving as the director of five state-run kindergartens. The political atmosphere was incredibly tense and terrifying; we were unable to resist government orders. I was forced to work inside the camp as a Chinese language teacher for the detainees.

What ultimately motivated you to escape to Kazakhstan?

I worked in the camp from November 2017 until March 2018. One day in March, they removed me from the camp, stripped me of my duties, and subjected me to intense interrogation. I was pressured, beaten, and tortured. Using the fact that my family was in Kazakhstan as a pretext, they planned to imprison me in the camps for one to three years. 

During my months there, I witnessed unspeakable tragedies and inhuman cruelty with my own eyes. I knew with certainty that if I were sent back to those camps, I would die there, and they wouldn’t even return my body to my family. 

I told myself, “I have never committed a crime; why should I die in a camp for no reason?” I decided that if I were to die, I wanted to see my children, whom I missed day and night, one last time. If I survived, I vowed to expose China’s crimes to the entire world. Taking a massive risk, I fled to Kazakhstan.

As your experience played out in Kazakhstan – arrest, trial, freedom but not asylum – civil society support and groups agitated for the Kazakh government to take a stand, while the government kept a carefully calculated distance from the issue, for fear of upsetting relations with China. What do you think about that range of reactions? How do you think about that period of time in Kazakhstan after you left China and before you moved on elsewhere?

I am deeply grateful to the people of Kazakhstan, international organizations, human rights groups, and journalists who supported me during those days when I was caught between life and death. They acted in accordance with the principles of justice and human rights. 

The Kazakh public strongly supported me and fiercely opposed the government’s attempt to hand me over to China. However, the Kazakh government acted contrary to the people’s will, prioritizing its relationship and interests with China. China’s influence in Kazakhstan is immense; CCP spies and “soft power” agents are deeply rooted there. It is a tragic reality that China interferes in the politics of an independent state like Kazakhstan.

Fortunately, despite the subsequent hardships, I was reunited with my family and gained the opportunity to expose the genocide when I was given asylum by Sweden.

What do you know about the present situation in Xinjiang? China claims the camps – which it called “vocational education and training centers” – are closed. Is that true? Has the oppression stopped or merely transformed?

China’s claim that the concentration camps are closed is a complete lie. Under international pressure, the genocide has merely transformed its appearance. They have converted hospitals, schools, and factories into detention centers. They use these deceptive methods so that when foreign journalists use satellite imagery, they only see what appear to be normal schools, hospitals, or factories. The oppression has not stopped; it has become more disguised. 

At the present moment, over half a million Turkic people remain imprisoned from five years to life, whereas millions more continue to be interned in camps disguised as factories, schools, hospitals, and are subject to slave labor. Our culture, our identity, continues to be eroded, and over a million Turkic children are interned in state-run “boarding schools” or “orphanages,” which are essentially internment camps for children. Tens of thousands of young Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples are being killed annually for organ harvesting.

The situation in Xinjiang – which made global headlines in the 2017-2020 period – has largely fallen out of the news cycle. Has the world stooped caring? Have China’s propaganda efforts around this issue – including organized tours to put on display how “normal” life is in the region – succeeded?

Has the world stopped caring? Have China’s propaganda efforts succeeded? I do not believe the world has stopped caring; rather, global attention is often diverted by other international crises. China uses every means necessary to hide its crimes, intensifying its propaganda and spreading misinformation. 

However, no matter what they do, they cannot hide the genocide and crimes against humanity.

China’s ongoing genocide, launched on May 23, 2014, as the so-called “Strike Hard Campaign Against Violent Terrorism,” will enter its 12th year this upcoming May. Despite genocide determinations by the U.S. and over a dozen parliaments and condemnation of crimes against humanity by 51 U.N. member states, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic peoples continue to face genocide and crimes against humanity, as highlighted in the State Department’s China 2024 Human Rights Report and the CECC’s 2025 Annual Report. 

January 19 marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S. officially recognizing China’s genocide in East Turkestan, yet we are deeply worried that the U.S. and the international community are prioritizing temporary trade interests with China. By allowing China to carry out genocide with impunity, they are undermining both our future and their own national security and international obligations.  

Unfortunately, the international community, especially governments, is failing to adequately address this crisis. This ongoing genocide is a historical fact now, and China cannot change the facts. I believe that, eventually, the Chinese government will pay the price for its actions.

You are currently the vice president of the East Turkestan Government in Exile. Can you tell us about what the East Turkestan Government in Exile is and what you’re doing to draw attention to the region’s troubles?

The East Turkestan Government in Exile is a representative body founded in 2004 to represent the interests of all the Turkic peoples of East Turkestan, including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples, and is dedicated to the struggle for the restoration of East Turkestan’s independence. We are actively working to garner recognition and support for our right to national self-determination and decolonization. 

The ongoing genocide didn’t start with the camps; it started with the Chinese communist occupation and colonization of East Turkestan in late 1949. As vice president, I believe it is vital to keep recounting the tragedies I witnessed firsthand inside the camps to ensure the ongoing genocide remains a priority for the world. I am working to bring our crisis and struggle to the international stage to counter China’s false narratives and hold China accountable for its crimes. I want the world to understand that the threat posed by China and the CCP is global and that the fate of East Turkestan is directly linked to the future peace and security of all nations.

What do you want to happen next in regard to China and East Turkestan/Xinjiang? What should the global community be doing? What should regional countries, like Kazakhstan, be doing?

I hope that governments will support our complaint to the International Criminal Court and hold the Chinese government and its leaders accountable under international law. 

The international community must make the crisis in East Turkestan the foremost priority in all diplomatic dialogues, impose strict sanctions, and recognize that simply demanding human rights has failed us; without our political rights, there is no guarantee of our human rights and freedoms. 

I am calling on the international community to support our right to decolonization and national self-determination in accordance with international law. 

Countries in Central Asia, like Kazakhstan, must seriously consider their own national sovereignty and work to reduce China’s influence and expansion. To prevent the tragedy of East Turkestan from happening to them, they must demand that China stop the genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Turkic peoples in East Turkestan. 

Furthermore, they must immediately halt and counter the extensive CCP espionage and “soft power” infiltration within their own societies.