Thread by @FatimahAbdulgh2

My father’s passing was still a mystery to my younger sister who lives in Turkey. She didn’t believe the news when I told her last year. She was in such deep denial and said, “father is still alive”. Although I was sure about him permanently not being around anymore 1/

there was a secret wish to believe what my sister was saying: father is still alive. Since we are completely cut off from all the direct communications with our family in Chinese occupied East Turkistan, we were completely helpless to confirm the news. 2/

My sister’s comment was, “I will believe it when I hear it from the family, not from the UN”. Seven months passed, she wasn’t able to shed a single tear because she was still hoping to hear father’s voice, to see his face, to kiss his hands, to be in his arms again. 3/

Unfortunately, her wishes was never gonna come true. Father was dead, died in the death camps, his body is never to be found, such an utter disappearance from the world, such utter destruction of a life! An innocent life, father of five, a life of rosy cheeks, hazel eyes... 4/

Last night my sister called me and told me that she was able to arrange a friend to speak with someone from the family. For the first time, they admitted that father passed two years ago, but they couldn’t tell the reason or about the body. 5/

That was the moment my sister was finally convinced that father is not around, not anymore, he cannot call her “Buayshem, come to me daughter”, or stroke her long hair and tell her, “I am proud of you, daughter”. My sister still couldn’t cry because she is frozen in a place 6/

A place where there is no separation, no pain, no tears but there is the strong presence of our father, his happiness and his laughters only. Being the first child, I am always a mother figure to my siblings when our parents are not around, so it was even more painful to see 7/

My sister’s suffering. To me, even if she is the mother of two, she is still that five-year-old chubby kid with the nickname given by her elder sister “Bodek - the chubby”. I didn’t know how to comfort her, how to tell her that our father was murdered, not a sudden murder but 8/

Long and torturous slow death inflicted upon him by the Chinese regime. These words seem to be so futile when I am actually facing my sister’s pain. Could the reason for our father’s death comfort her or me? Could we ever able to rationalize the murder of an innocent man? 9/

Could his death ever be justified? Could anyone bring him back from the death even if they are the murderers and are truly sorry for what they have done?
A life has just vanished from our view, as if it has never existed before. As if the curtains are closed and the show is over

Then my sister’s words comforted me, “He already taught us how to be brave and strong, he was preparing us for the toughness of life, somehow I knew he prepared us for this moment.” Then she moved on to telling me about how her friends told her that she was talking a lot more 11/

About the father in 2018, always having to chat with her friends and ask them, “what do you think my father is doing right now? What do you think if he is doing well?” It was around the time that he passed away.
I cried this morning thinking about my father and my sister 12/

Thinking about our family in Chinese occupied East Turkistan. I heard that my mother, younger brother and younger sister are still alive, I don’t know about other relatives and friends, but at least my immediate family is still alive at the moment. But, who can guarantee their 13

Safety and well-being in the future? Is there any future for them? GENOCIDE! What a horrible word to be spelled out! 8 letters mercilessly staring at my face, spitting fires on my chest, flooding the eyes with tears, pulling out all the reasons and logic and senses out of my 14/

being. I no longer can make sense of anything, I don’t understand why a breathing, talking, hugging, dancing, driving, praying, loving human being was ruthlessly killed, his whole being was forcefully taken away, his laughters were wiped out, his breath was no more to be felt 15/

Why? I wish I could answer this question with the words like: “ it is because my father’s land is invaded, occupied and it is because the PEOPLE who robbed him of his home also wanted to rob him of his life.” But why? Are they not also breathing, laughing, driving, talking 16/

people? Do they not also have daughters, grandchildren, wives, husbands, memories, aspirations...? Why and how someone, another human being, could do such unbearable things to another human being without carrying the heaviest weight on their own shoulders, the weight of their 17/

own darkest moments, which is so heavy that no science could measure its weight. Is not Chen Quanguo a person? Is not Xi Jinping a person? Is not the one who burned or buried my father’s body is a person? Are you not a person? Am I not a person? It may sound naive to ask such 18/

questions when faced with long long term suffering, as long as I could remember, my father could remember, my grandfather could remember, my whole family could remember, my friends could remember, my fellow Uyghurs could remember. I am asking all these questions all over again 19

I am in a place, a quiet, stagnant, tasteless, dull place. This very place is turbulent, gathering point of every taste and all the colors. I want to ask a question from Xi Jinping: do you have a daughter too? Do you feel pain when she cries? When she cries for your actions? 20/

I am not sure about anything anymore. But I know my father is not the first or the last to be murdered. There are millions (000000), with six zeroes, a number that change anyone’s life when it shows up in their lives, such as a beach house, an incurable disease, or anything 21/

that is attached to these 000000 figures. It surely did change mine; now I am attached to a name : millions of Uyghurs are incarcerated in the death camps in the Chinese occupied East Turkistan. These figures are attached to my very being now: millions of seconds passed 22/

after my father’s murder and millions are yet to come without his presence. These figures will be attached to my future: millions, 000000, of Uyghurs have been killed in 21st century and millions of people did nothing about it. There are millions of drops of tears we shed 23/

and millions of remorseful words we will utter and millions of roses will spring up from the earth where the innocent Uyghur lives are buried. Farewell, father! 24/ End.