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scribepub's review against another edition
The Chief Witness is a deeply disturbing insight into the dark heart of the Chinese Communist Party and its reign of terror in Xinjiang. It will rank historically along with the great literary exposes of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulag.
Clive Hamilton
Clive Hamilton
careinthelibrary's review against another edition
4.0
The Chief Witness: Escape from China’s Modern-Day Concentration Camps by Sayragul Sauytbay is such a necessary piece of writing. This covers an ongoing genocide of Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim ethnic groups in China's northwesternmost province, East Turkestan (also known as its colonized name, Xinjiang). So packed full of information that has given me the knowledge to feel confident in my perspective and to advocate for the victims of this crime against humanity and hopefully spread the word so others learn and resist it as well.
Sauytbay covers everything from her childhood before the majority of the prejudice to her young adulthood facing some discrimination, travel restriction, and religious practice oppression all the way to complete surveillance, detention, torture, medical experimentation, all the trademarks of a genocide.
If you're not convinced by the absolute necessity of reading this to better inform yourself on this preventable violence, the memoir itself is good *shrugs*. If that's what you needed to hear to want to pick this up.
content warnings for: cultural genocide, physical and mental torture, starvation, Islamophobia, sexual violence, gang rape (described on page), sexual coercion, medical experimentation, poisoning, authoritarian government regime.
Sauytbay covers everything from her childhood before the majority of the prejudice to her young adulthood facing some discrimination, travel restriction, and religious practice oppression all the way to complete surveillance, detention, torture, medical experimentation, all the trademarks of a genocide.
If you're not convinced by the absolute necessity of reading this to better inform yourself on this preventable violence, the memoir itself is good *shrugs*. If that's what you needed to hear to want to pick this up.
content warnings for: cultural genocide, physical and mental torture, starvation, Islamophobia, sexual violence, gang rape (described on page), sexual coercion, medical experimentation, poisoning, authoritarian government regime.
zainub_reads's review against another edition
5.0
Incarcerated in a Chinese concentration camp for her crime of being born a Kazakh, an ethnic minority in China, Sayragul has become an important eyewitness bringing to light the unimaginable horrors unfolding in the camps, to the Muslims jailed within, in the form of severe torture, unbearable abuse, brutality, rape, and even murder for minor infractions like being unable to answer in correct Chinese, answering incorrectly, questioning their imprisonment, refusing to eat pork, drink wine, or even speaking out of turn!
They are being killed, used for medical experimentation, murdered so that their organs can be harvested and sold in a booming industry for “Halal organs”!
They are being ethnically cleansed so that nothing of their identity and culture remains in a Country that is hell-bent on stomping out any dissent or differences in order to create a homogeneous community of bots that will blindly obey the Chinese. Communist. Party rules.
To begin with the region of East Turkestan was violently annexed by China in 1949, a land that has always been home to the Uyghur’s, Kazakhs, Tartars, and Mongolians among others, and then began the process of systematically oppressing the Citizens by taking away their land, property, culture, and now their religion, and their right to live.
This book is a difficult read but an essential read that I implore you to read.
“In footage secretly recorded, the Chinese Head of a department for internal security in Xianjian puts the dire situation of muslims in the region in a nutshell: “Their human rights aren’t being violated, because they have no rights.”
With every passing minute the world keeps silent about these atrocities, more innocent people die.”
They are being killed, used for medical experimentation, murdered so that their organs can be harvested and sold in a booming industry for “Halal organs”!
They are being ethnically cleansed so that nothing of their identity and culture remains in a Country that is hell-bent on stomping out any dissent or differences in order to create a homogeneous community of bots that will blindly obey the Chinese. Communist. Party rules.
To begin with the region of East Turkestan was violently annexed by China in 1949, a land that has always been home to the Uyghur’s, Kazakhs, Tartars, and Mongolians among others, and then began the process of systematically oppressing the Citizens by taking away their land, property, culture, and now their religion, and their right to live.
This book is a difficult read but an essential read that I implore you to read.
“In footage secretly recorded, the Chinese Head of a department for internal security in Xianjian puts the dire situation of muslims in the region in a nutshell: “Their human rights aren’t being violated, because they have no rights.”
With every passing minute the world keeps silent about these atrocities, more innocent people die.”
ameliasbooks's review against another edition
challenging
informative
sad
medium-paced
3.75
When I first started this book, I struggled a lot with the writing. I was wondering why the publisher didn't do a better editing job to make this a more polished reading experience. I am a big fan of narrative nonfiction, so I am more used to that kind of style. But who am I to be snobbish about a book, that is nothing else than the proof for a deeply hurtful experience in own words? Sauytbay is not a professional writer and the decision to let the writing for in her own voice, makes total sense to me now. What she is describing, is beyond terrible and I had heard about a few things, which she is describing in this book before, but was obviously quite ignorant about the dimension of what China is actually doing to the Uigurs and the Kazakh people (and some other nations, but this is not what this book is about). And China does this in a much more clever way than e.g. Russia, they just keep everybody's mouth shot with money and valuable trade relations.
lisatz's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.75
am Anfang hat Sauytbay sehr häufig erwähnt ihre Familie sei nicht so wie andere muslimische Familien. Sie seien liberal und nicht konservativ, sie muss kein Kopftuch tragen etc. diese Aufwertung ihrer eigenen Familie durch die Abwertung anderer fand ich sehr unangebracht.
Da Sauytbay das Buch nicht selbst geschrieben hat sondern mithilfe eines Übersetzers und einer deutschen Autorin, weiß ich nicht inwieweit sie überhaupt für diese Teile verantwortlich ist.
Abgesehen davon ein unglaublich wichtiges Buch und entscheidend für ein besseres Verständnis der Lage der uigurischen und Kasachischen Bevölkekörung in Nordchina.
Da Sauytbay das Buch nicht selbst geschrieben hat sondern mithilfe eines Übersetzers und einer deutschen Autorin, weiß ich nicht inwieweit sie überhaupt für diese Teile verantwortlich ist.
Abgesehen davon ein unglaublich wichtiges Buch und entscheidend für ein besseres Verständnis der Lage der uigurischen und Kasachischen Bevölkekörung in Nordchina.
sonea_moon's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
What it must have taken to write this book... what an incredible strength. I thought I was already quite well informed on the matter, but the experience of this woman is even so much more horrible than I had expected
We must spread the information on what is happening! Recommending this book to everyone I know
We must spread the information on what is happening! Recommending this book to everyone I know
emerxxi's review against another edition
5.0
If you only read one book this year please make it this one.
This book is hard to read, it's hard to be confronted with the stark realities of the Chinese concentration camps.
This was June's pick for the book club in work but it has taken me this long to get through it because it was emotionally draining to read it. I cannot begin to fathom have emotionally and physically draining it was to live it.
Please read this book and speak out about the plight of the Uighrs and Kazakh people in East Turkistan.
This book is hard to read, it's hard to be confronted with the stark realities of the Chinese concentration camps.
This was June's pick for the book club in work but it has taken me this long to get through it because it was emotionally draining to read it. I cannot begin to fathom have emotionally and physically draining it was to live it.
Please read this book and speak out about the plight of the Uighrs and Kazakh people in East Turkistan.