Manga comic about Uygur woman’s ordeal in China a viral hit, despite lack of publicity and shunning by publishers
- Mihrigul Tursun’s story starts in 2015 when she was handcuffed at Urumqi airport, hooded and had her triplets separated from her
- A manga drawn by Japanese artist Tomomi Shimizu has been translated into English, Chinese and Uygur and viewed more than 240,000 times online
A Japanese comic book telling the powerful and tragic tale of a 29-year-old Uygur woman from China has become a surprise viral hit.
What Has Happened to Me – A Testimony of a Uygur Woman recounts the story told by Mihrigul Tursun, a member of the Muslim minority in western China that has faced relentless crackdowns from authorities in Beijing.
The manga – as all comic-style works are known in Japan – describes Tursun’s imprisonment and torture by the Chinese government, the death of one of her young children while in custody, and the jailing of her husband for 16 years.
Drawn by Japanese artist Tomomi Shimizu, the manga has been translated into English, Chinese and Uygur. Shimizu said it has now been viewed on her website more than 240,000 times and her tweets have drawn more than 2.6 million likes, retweets and other online engagement. The manga has been cited by pro-democracy protesters on the streets of Hong Kong and generated feedback from the United States to Europe, and from Russia to Taiwan.
China has incarcerated at least 1 million Uygurs in re-education camps in its western Xinjiang region. The mass internment is framed by Beijing as a war on extremism, but it has been widely denounced as an attempt to stamp out Uygur culture and Islam, and replace it with devotion to President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party.