In 1997 there was a big massacre. To us, it was more like a June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre. It happened in the city of Ghulja, which is very close to the Central Asian borders, and a lot of Uyghurs were executed. It was a peaceful protest, but the Chinese government cracked down on that protest very hard.
After 1997, the Chinese government also executed a lot of Uyghur people. As a result, a lot of Uyghurs fled to Central Asian countries. Because they couldn't return—if they got deported, they would be executed—some of them fled to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan. A lot of them were actually later picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters, because the U.S. paid money for picking up people. These people were picked up and given to the Americans, then the Americans brought them to Guantanamo Bay.