Fleeing to Europe: A Xinjiang Police Officer Describes 'Re-education Camps' as an Indelible Nightmare

Human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party in Xinjiang frequently spark public protests. (Video Screenshot)

[People News] The human rights situation in Xinjiang, China, continues to draw international scrutiny and condemnation globally. Zhang Yabo, a former grassroots police officer who worked in a re-education camp in Xinjiang and has since fled to Germany, shared in an exclusive interview with 'Deutsche Welle' (DW) that during his years as a police officer in the Hotan region, he witnessed numerous instances of torture and brainwashing, and was forced to participate in surveillance activities. In 2025, he escaped China with his son and exposed the grim reality inside this 'modern concentration camp' to the outside world.

According to a report from the Deutsche Welle Chinese website on the 26th, in 2014, shortly after Xi Jinping assumed power in China, he delivered a series of internal speeches to officials in Xinjiang. This was followed by the launch of a special operation to 'crack down on violent terrorism' and a 'people's war on terror,' which resulted in the forced detention of Uyghurs in 'vocational skills training centres,' referred to by international media as 're-education camps' or 'Xinjiang concentration camps.'

By the end of 2016, after Chen Quanguo was appointed Secretary of the Xinjiang Party Committee, the scale of these re-education camps expanded significantly. Investigations indicate that by 2018, there were at least 181 such facilities, with estimates suggesting that over a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities were being held without trial for extended periods, enduring torture such as shackling, beatings, and solitary confinement in harsh conditions, and being compelled to engage in forced labour, including cotton picking.

Police officers in Xinjiang are reportedly suffering from anxiety disorders.

Zhang Yabo, who was born and raised in Henan, has been living in Xinjiang for over a decade. From November 2014 to September 2023, he held various positions including police officer at the Yutian County Detention Center in the Hotan region, village police officer in Yuruqi Village, police officer at the Hotan Rehabilitation Hospital, police officer for seasonal labor export in Shaya County, police officer at the Wuqikun Maidang Police Station in Han'erik Town, and police officer at both the Hotan County and regional detention centers. Throughout this time, he travelled to nearly 50 prisons across Xinjiang to escort prisoners or return individuals who had completed their sentences. He also undertook repatriation and deportation missions to places like Guangdong, Guizhou, and Anhui, escorting Uyghurs working or doing business there back to Xinjiang for interrogation.

Zhang Yabo disclosed that every police officer in Xinjiang experiences 'KPI (Key Performance Indicator) anxiety.' Their KPIs are not measured by the number of cases solved, but rather by 'how many Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities they have sent to prison, or back to prison.'

Officers who do not meet their targets face verbal abuse from their superiors, salary cuts, or even the loss of promotion opportunities. Conversely, those national security police officers who perform 'exceptionally' often drive luxury cars and reside in lavish homes, yet their wealth is built on the disturbing cycle of villagers repeatedly entering the 'prison—detention center—prison' loop.

Individuals released after serving their sentences are subjected to 'secondary sentencing.'

Zhang Yabo recounted that when Uyghurs were released from prison after serving their sentences, they were not greeted by friends and family, but rather by national security police who were eagerly waiting to 'dig deep for clues.' These officers treated the released individuals as tools for achieving their performance targets; if they could extract old information through leading interrogations, they could impose 'secondary sentencing' on them.

Those who were not immediately convicted were required to attend a public denunciation meeting known as a 'meet-and-greet.' Zhang Yabo described this event as 'the most terrifying showcase of brainwashing results in humanity.' The released individuals had to introduce themselves in Mandarin, report their supervision schedules, express gratitude for the Party's grace, and sing 'Without the Communist Party, there would be no New China' before they could line up for short-term detention.

Zhang Yabo witnessed a nearly seventy-year-old woman bowing robotically at the meet-and-greet, turning pale and trembling at the sight of the police.

As a grassroots police officer, Zhang Yabo was required to provide weekly 'suspected terrorist activity' leads that could result in the detention of Uyghurs. Failure to meet this requirement would lead to insults from superiors, salary deductions, and cancellation of leave. He admitted that villagers could be falsely labelled as 'potential violent extremists' and detained for simply 'watching a video once,' 'wearing a headscarf once,' or even 'playing basketball once' for exercise.

To avoid torture, he pretended to be insane and sought admission to a mental hospital.

From November 2017 to August 2018, Zhang Yabo served as a supervising police officer at a rehabilitation hospital in the Hotan region, which is essentially a concentration camp for Uyghurs. He recalls that the number of doctors, police, and 'patients' in the facility was far above normal levels. In this place, beatings, solitary confinement, and sexual abuse were commonplace. He often heard the heart-wrenching screams of the detainees, which have since become an inescapable nightmare for him, resulting in severe psychological trauma.

To avoid harsher punishments, many Uyghurs felt compelled to 'act crazy' or bribe doctors to be classified as mentally ill, voluntarily admitting themselves to this 'rehabilitation hospital.' Zhang Yabo was fully aware of this situation but chose to turn a blind eye, reasoning that 'as long as they don’t cause trouble, it’s fine.' He understood that in this environment, 'one could be diagnosed with an illness even if they were not sick.'

The Forced Performance of a 'Happy Life'

When the international community raised concerns about the re-education camps, the local response was deeply ironic. Zhang Yabo witnessed on several occasions that whenever foreign journalists or international organisations visited, the authorities would quickly implement emergency measures, replacing the original villagers with local Uyghur officials who would deny the existence of torture and stage a 'happy and joyful life.'

In 2019, the Beijing government claimed that "all students at the re-education centres have graduated." However, research by German Xinjiang expert Zheng Guoen (Adrian Zenz) reveals that the Chinese Communist Party's approach to the Uyghurs has only been modified: it has shifted from large-scale concentration camps to a pervasive surveillance system that infiltrates daily life. In every village, Uyghurs are coerced into acting as "informants," required to report to the police station every day. Even dating is restricted by a curfew that mandates they return to their villages by 8 PM, effectively stripping them of their normal lives. Zhang Yabo estimates that approximately 40% of the adults in his village have been detained, and nearly half of those released have faced re-sentencing or long-term control.

In 2021, the U.S. State Department, the Canadian Parliament, and the Dutch Parliament passed resolutions that explicitly accused the Chinese Communist Party of committing "genocide" against the Uyghur ethnic minority. That same year, the governments of the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand issued statements condemning or sanctioning the Chinese government over human rights issues in Xinjiang.

In 2022, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report on human rights in Xinjiang, highlighting that the Chinese authorities have engaged in "serious human rights violations" against the Uyghur people and "other predominantly Muslim communities," which may amount to "crimes against humanity."

In response, the state media of the Chinese Communist Party launched a hysterical rebuttal. It was through these rebuttals that Zhang Yabo became aware of the UN human rights chief's accusations against the Chinese authorities, a revelation that did not surprise him.

In September 2023, a weary Zhang Yabo resigned, citing the need to care for his family. By August 2025, he took his son on a European tour and seized the chance to escape at Neuschwanstein Castle. Although he left his wife in China without her knowledge and risks facing retaliation, Zhang Yabo expressed, 'It is precisely because of my deep feelings for Xinjiang that I cannot choose silence.'

In a personal note to a reporter from Deutsche Welle, Zhang Yabo wrote, 'He lost his homeland, but regained his soul.'△