Unprecedented Whistleblower Testimony from Inside China’s Police Apparatus Confirms Xinjiang Forced Labor Is Intensifying
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/50884376
> Firsthand testimony from Zhang Yabo — a former Han Chinese police officer who served in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2014 to 2023 — proves that state-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang has not ended but has grown more pervasive and deliberately harder to detect.
>
> Parts of Zhang Yabo’s testimony, accompanied by VOC’s [Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's] latest findings, are published in Foreign Policy, Sourcing Journal, and The Spectator along with a companion profile of the witness by Der Spiegel.
>
> Zhang’s account and corroborating documentation are the most operationally detailed insider testimony yet obtained from within Xinjiang’s security apparatus. Between 2014 and 2016, while working as a detention center officer, Zhang **witnessed the routine beating and torture of Uyghur detainees, the rape of a female detainee by a colleague during interrogation, and deaths resulting from abuse**. He estimates that approximately 25 percent of the adult population in his jurisdiction was interned in re-education camps.
>
> Between 2018 and 2020, Zhang supervised forced labor transfers to Xinjiang’s cotton fields, describing government convoys escorted by armed forces, identity cards confiscated to prevent escape, ten-hour workdays, and strict prohibitions on prayer and any religious expression.
>
> Beginning in early 2023, authorities initiated a campaign of short-term arbitrary detentions to enforce total obedience among Uyghur populations. Residents who had previously failed to participate in state labor transfers were subjected to detentions lasting up to 15 days under intentionally harsh conditions.
>
> ...
>
> **Forced labor transfers have since reached a record 3.4 million deployment instances** in 2025, and direct exports from Xinjiang to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union surged 465 percent during Ma’s tenure, according to official customs data.
>
> Zhang’s testimony further documents how Beijing’s repression evolved under Ma Xingrui, who succeeded Chen Quanguo as the region’s Communist Party secretary in December 2021 and remained in power until July 2025. Rather than dismantling the coercive apparatus, Ma transitioned the campaign of repression from high-visibility internment to decentralized, normalized coercion that is far harder for the outside world to detect.
>
> ...
>
> “Zhang Yabo risked everything to bring this testimony to light. Beijing has frozen his accounts, threatened his family, and charged him with endangering national security,” said Dr. Eric Patterson, VOC’s President and CEO. “This is not history. It is happening now, woven directly into global supply chains. VOC will continue to expose these atrocities until the international community acts with the urgency this crisis demands.”
>
> ...
>
> [Web Archive link](https://web.archive.org/web/20260422052326/https://victimsofcommunism.org/unprecedented-whistleblower-testimony-from-inside-chinas-police-apparatus-confirms-xinjiang-forced-labor-is-intensifying/)
> Firsthand testimony from Zhang Yabo — a former Han Chinese police officer who served in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2014 to 2023 — proves that state-imposed forced labor in Xinjiang has not ended but has grown more pervasive and deliberately harder to detect.
>
> Parts of Zhang Yabo’s testimony, accompanied by VOC’s [Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation's] latest findings, are published in Foreign Policy, Sourcing Journal, and The Spectator along with a companion profile of the witness by Der Spiegel.
>
> Zhang’s account and corroborating documentation are the most operationally detailed insider testimony yet obtained from within Xinjiang’s security apparatus. Between 2014 and 2016, while working as a detention center officer, Zhang **witnessed the routine beating and torture of Uyghur detainees, the rape of a female detainee by a colleague during interrogation, and deaths resulting from abuse**. He estimates that approximately 25 percent of the adult population in his jurisdiction was interned in re-education camps.
>
> Between 2018 and 2020, Zhang supervised forced labor transfers to Xinjiang’s cotton fields, describing government convoys escorted by armed forces, identity cards confiscated to prevent escape, ten-hour workdays, and strict prohibitions on prayer and any religious expression.
>
> Beginning in early 2023, authorities initiated a campaign of short-term arbitrary detentions to enforce total obedience among Uyghur populations. Residents who had previously failed to participate in state labor transfers were subjected to detentions lasting up to 15 days under intentionally harsh conditions.
>
> ...
>
> **Forced labor transfers have since reached a record 3.4 million deployment instances** in 2025, and direct exports from Xinjiang to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union surged 465 percent during Ma’s tenure, according to official customs data.
>
> Zhang’s testimony further documents how Beijing’s repression evolved under Ma Xingrui, who succeeded Chen Quanguo as the region’s Communist Party secretary in December 2021 and remained in power until July 2025. Rather than dismantling the coercive apparatus, Ma transitioned the campaign of repression from high-visibility internment to decentralized, normalized coercion that is far harder for the outside world to detect.
>
> ...
>
> “Zhang Yabo risked everything to bring this testimony to light. Beijing has frozen his accounts, threatened his family, and charged him with endangering national security,” said Dr. Eric Patterson, VOC’s President and CEO. “This is not history. It is happening now, woven directly into global supply chains. VOC will continue to expose these atrocities until the international community acts with the urgency this crisis demands.”
>
> ...
>
> [Web Archive link](https://web.archive.org/web/20260422052326/https://victimsofcommunism.org/unprecedented-whistleblower-testimony-from-inside-chinas-police-apparatus-confirms-xinjiang-forced-labor-is-intensifying/)