She survived a Chinese internment camp and made it to Virginia – will the US let her stay?
- Zumrat Dawut, her husband, Imran Muhammad, and their three children fled to the US after she was allegedly interrogated and sterilised
- Dawut’s case was noted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but she and her family are still waiting to see if they will receive asylum
On each step of their journey from northwestern China to Northern Virginia, the family believed they would be stopped. They were used to being followed. They expected to be tracked.
That’s how it goes in Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has targeted Uygurs and other Turkic Muslims, turning a vast region into a laboratory for mass surveillance and building a network of internment camps.
Not many Uygurs escape the checkpoints and security cameras. Fewer still make it all the way to the United States.
But Zumrat Dawut, her husband, Imran Muhammad, and their three children got out. Dawut, who survived internment and an unwanted sterilisation, fled first with her family to her husband’s native Pakistan. The next leg of their journey took them to a basement flat in Virginia outside Washington.
They spent their first American summer strolling through shopping malls and savouring Popeyes’ halal fried chicken. “Here in US, people have human rights. People live like real human beings,” Dawut said.
They have applied for asylum in the United States. They want, desperately, to stay.