‘I Lived My Life as I’d Said I Would, I Have no Regrets’: Former Xinjiang Independence Activist

"After my arrest, I made it a goal to write this book because independence was what I longed for in this life. I dreamt of freedom. So, I wrote this book as another message for freedom, for independence, because I wanted to work hard to tell the world. Even while in prison, I thought and thought about it, and I went about putting the book together in my head. Ultimately, in 1968 I was able to write a few things down. I couldn’t have done it in prison. If they’d seen me writing, they would have beaten and killed me. It was very difficult coming abroad ... My family went through so many difficult things. I had to work and didn’t have time to write, so later, after 2000, I started. I wrote. I wrote about things that had happened in my life, and I wrote them as they happened, you could say."

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