A Young Uighur Man Tells His Experience Being Detained, Beaten, Tortured, and then Forced to Spy Against His Own People

Mehmet left China to go visit his father. Upon his return he was detained for 16 months and beaten and interrogated relentlessly. They would ask him questions over and over again and when he didn’t have the answers they wanted they would say “you haven’t felt the severity of the pain enough yet” and continue beating him. Mehmet said that he hung for three hours and would beat the soles of his feet with a water pipe. After begging, they let him down, but only to put him in a chair rear-facing and continued to beat him. They asked him what he was tasked to do and he responded that he was only a cook and wondered what else would there be for him to do. Finally, Mehmet gave in and accepted their offer to be a spy where he was given money and a ticket to Germany. Unable to obtain a visa he stayed in Turkey. He followed their orders for months and finally had enough so he cut all ties with them, but says that guilt stays with him.