About 300 Kyrgyz people have been detained in China

About 300 Kyrgyz people have been detained in China in the village of Kaiyz, where about 1500 Kyrgyz live currently, reports radio "Free Asia".

According to them, ethnic Kyrgyz people in China are being detained and sent to “political re-education camps".  In their opinion, they are not just camps, they are prisons where detainees are tortured.

Radio "Free Asia" reported the arrest of almost 300 Kyrgyz out of 1,500 residents of the Kaiyz village of Kyzyl-Su Kyrgyz Autonomous Region of China last week. Kyrgyz people who live in China told that ethnic Kyrgys people are detained without any reasons. It was reported that Kyrgyz scientists in Xinjiang were also detained. Kyrgyz activist Edil Baisalov on November 17 tweeted a list of detainees, including intellectuals from ethnic Kyrgyz.

Ethnic Kyrgyz from China, who are currently in Kyrgyzstan and have Kairylman status there talk about relatives detained in China. One of them, Tursunaly Usen, who came to his historic homeland five years ago, received Kyrgyz citizenship and lives in Karakol at present time. According to him, the Kyrgyz authorities do not pay attention to this problems, while even in Kazakhstan they are paying attention to this issue:

“I came from the village of Shaty", - said Usen. "My parents and all relatives have stayed in China. These days, we are not able to talk to them. In the Shaty there used to be five schools - with Uigur, Kazakh, Chinese, Kyrgyz and Mongolian languages ​​of study. All of these schools have closed, leaving only learning in Chinese. My parents are about 80 years old. They are not detained. All other relatives were detained. No one left in the village. Everyone who is over 70 years old is in prison now. Although they say that this is "re-education camps", but in fact they are ordinary prisons.

Kairylmans of Kyrgyzstan, not having received a response from the official authorities, decided to apply to the organization "Young Volunteers of Ata-Zhurt of Kazakhstan". Serikzhan Bilash is an activist of this organization that works with Kayrylmans. Citing information from Urumqi, he said that over 50 thousand Kyrgyz were detained in China. This is two months old information, perhaps the number of detainees has grown says Bilash.

Recall, earlier, Kazakhstan sent a note to China about the attitude towards ethnic Kazakhs in XUAR.

"The Qazaq Times"