My direct family members are in Canada, but I have close relatives back home in East Turkestan. All of my relatives back home receive threats and are punished terribly back home. I was raised by my grandmother, but I haven't had contact with her since 2009, because the Chinese police officers pressured her and told her, “You have to tell your granddaughter to shut up.” If not, she would have trouble.
Once she told me that, I cut the connection with her, but I didn't shut up, of course. I didn't contact my grandmother, and she passed away one year after I stopped contacting her. All of my cousins and friends cut connections with me because of my activism, because the police bothered them whenever I contacted them by phone, even though I didn't talk about any sensitive issues. Most of them were arrested in 2017. Maybe some of them I didn't contact, and so I don't know if they were arrested or not. This is happening to every Uighur Canadian or other Uighurs in the diaspora.
This is exactly the example of China's genocide. The intention is to cut the connection, break the lineage and break the origin.
Thank you.