All posts tagged: Detention

Gene A. Bunin: On Xinjiang, Atajurt, and Serikjan

A video and transcript from Gene A. Bunin on the contribution of the organization Atajurt and its founder Serikjan Bilash to understanding what is happening to Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China and why they must be protected. Thanks to some volunteers who were willing to sacrifice their time and skills the video archive of Atajurt is now safely stored in a third location. All right. Big hello to everybody. My name is Gene Bunin (for those not aware). It is currently 11:07 at night – 11:08 – in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and I am here, I am in good health, and I am recording this video on my own free will (regardless of what Western media might tell you). Now, the reason I’m recording this video, which is very unusual for me… I think people who read what I write or generally follow what I do probably know that I don’t really record videos, I just write. And I would prefer to write. And here I am going to make a sort of rare exception. This is …

The stories of Kazakhstan citizens arrested in China

Translated by Gene Bunin on August 23, 2018; Republished with Permission The following is an English translation of an article published by Нұртай Лахан for Azattyq in the January of 2018. Though old, I found it quite insightful and as such have decided to translate it. It covers the stories of Omirbek Ali, Orynbek Koksebek, and Asqar Azatbek – all Kazakhstan citizens who had been arrested in China and sent to camps / detention centers at some point over the past two years. Omirbek had already been released when this article aired. Orynbek has been released since, in the March of this year. Asqar, taken in the special economic zone at Korgas, is still missing. News of a crackdown on ethnic Kazakhs in China have been coming in starting from April 2017. Among those detained are also those who had moved to their historical homeland from China and had already managed to obtain Kazakhstan citizenship. Omirbek Bekaly was born in China in 1970, in Turpan’s Pichan (Shanshan) County. In 2006, he moved from China to …