When Xinjiang camp survivor Erbakit Otarbay, from Kazakhstan, decided to give evidence at London’s Uyghur Tribunal earlier this week, he felt proud of himself. Here was a chance to be a witness at an independent hearing that sought to investigate the human rights crisis in the northwest of China. Before a panel of judges, he would be able to recount the horrors he experienced in government-run detention centers between 2017 and 2018, after visiting family in Xinjiang.

Otarbay, 47, secured a visa from the British Embassy in Kazakhstan, and prepared to go to London in September. He told only a few close friends. But, before long, the phone calls started.

Two or three times a day, a man calling himself “Bakhyt” from Kazakhstan’s state security service began calling him, warning him not to go to attend. “If you go, it might affect your family, your future,” the man told him. “You should think of your family members in Kazakhstan, and in China.” He continually asked Otarbay if he would come and meet him in a coffee shop or a restaurant to “talk, face to face.” 

When the day came to fly to London, Otarbay went to Almaty airport. There was a very long pause as the border official looked at his documents, before refusing to let him board his flight. “I was shaking. I was so scared that they would arrest me,” Otarbay said.