Whole writing plan and research project was born out of a controversial (and ridicules) white paper, Historical Matters Concerning Xinjiang, issued by China’s State Council Information Office in the summer of 2019, in which the Chinese government attempted to justify the legitimacy of its network of re-education camps that were being used to detain Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.
Today, the Chinese government’s systemic oppression against the cultural and religious practices of millions of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in China’s Xinjiang region is no longer a secret. In late 2019, The New York Times and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists co-published hundreds of pages of highly classified Chinese government documents. Since then, the operations manual for administering mass re-education camps in China’s Xinjiang region has slowly come to light, complete with a list of guidelines of how state officials can effectively perform surveillance and engage in predictive policing activities. But above operations beyond the borders of China.
In Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the rest of the world, many China-born ethnic emigrants and those whose friends and relatives are imprisoned in Xinjiang camps have been raising their voices in order to shed light on human rights violations being perpetrated by the Chinese government against their citizens or previous citizens.
However, the voice is not laud enough.
The voice form family members were often coerced not to publicize what was happening under threat of their lost loved one remaining in the camp or region indefinitely.
I always believe that the written personal experiences — in any forms — are the best way to resist for the forgotten and invisible voices from those who have been or are still suffering injustices; and it drives my passion for related academic research and non-academic writing. I named this serious of diary as “Off Xinjiang” as I wish all those who are suffering by the Chinese totalitarian rule could one day get away from the region; and hope those sharing information will generate increased attention on the ongoing violations of human rights both within the Xinjiang region and beyond.
“Off Xinjiang” will be a serious of the diary alongside the process of producing my MA thesis — actually, I am not sure what it will be. It might include critique, summary of the immediate media report, released testimony and evidence, introduction of history and region, or something I believe it is worth to record in my journey through completing an MA degree during the pandemic.
We are all experiencing an unprecedented quarantine, and writing down our anger, afraid, dispersion, and desire for afterwards; but even that, to those who has been detained in the re-education camps and their family, the quarantine will never end.
寫碩士論文的同時，我訪問了哈薩克人權組織Atajurt Kazakh Human Rights的創辦人Serikzhan Bilash，他說我會盡可能幫助妳，唯一的要求是希望妳以後能把哈薩克人正受到中共迫害的事實在中文世界裡宣傳。
與此同時，我打開新的日記本，以Off Xinjiang 為名，記錄了那些證詞裡最讓我印象深刻的人事和我自己的情緒變化。用書寫抵抗遺忘，這是驅動我開始書寫和研究新疆人權危機（種族滅絕）、以及哈薩克人經驗最原始的動力。
簡言之，這個主題是為了寫研究論文、讀了超過2000份新疆再教育營證詞後的副產品，一個從研究者和她所採訪和閱讀的對象之間既具體也抽象的對話轉化而成、真誠的紀實寫作，也可以簡單當成是哈薩克新疆再教育營受害者證詞的中文版本整理。
儘管已經有很多單位正在做收藏證詞的工作，中文世界裡，報導者、端傳媒和蘋果日報有過深度的專題報導，然所有的報導很大程度上已逐漸流於單一論述，倖存者成了中國政府正在種族滅絕的證據。我不確然自己的書寫是否能夠抵禦此這樣的現象，很大程度我可能會失敗，我只想回歸到人本身，想寫下那些實實在在發生在維吾爾人和哈薩克人身上的故事、那些被壓制或遺忘的聲音。
