Even when I’m basking in Australia’s wintery sun, far away from the terror I faced from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a Uyghur in Xinjiang, speaking out against the genocide is still hard.
For starters, even after sacrificing my home and a promising career, the freedom I have found is still very much conditional. Everyone I know and care about at home—my mother and father, my friends, my business partners, and my career mentors—is a potential hostage for the CCP, which regularly imprisons and terrorizes the friends and family of those who speak out overseas. Many in the Uyghur diaspora have been threatened by the security services, whose reach extends overseas, or offered the false hope of freedom for imprisoned relatives if they stay silent. That’s why so many of us are reluctant to speak, or have to use pseudonyms, as I am doing in this article.
