Musapir, a native of Kelamayi (克拉马依) in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, is a police cadet in the Peoples’ Public Security University of China. In July 2006 he posted the following story on a website devoted to Uighur affairs.

During this summer vacation the school arranged for us to go to Shenzhen on a two month internship. The people and events in this story are all real, but for their security and for other reasons some names have been changed.

The danwei where I did my internship was a local police station (派出所) in Shenzhen city’s Bao’an (宝安) district. Around midday the day before yesterday we received a call saying some of our people on the beat (巡防人员) had arrested a thief in front of a commercial plaza. After taking the call, a police officer and I went together to the scene and found that the thief was a boy from Xinjiang, the same place I come from. He had been stealing a cellphone from someone’s bag, but the victim noticed.

The boy was only around eight to ten years old, short, but with big eyes and a pronounced nose. Later on, the policemen were all joking that the kid looks just like me. The boy was scared, crying. When I went over to him and spoke a few words in Uighur, he looked even more frightened.

At the scene, when we asked him if he had stolen anything, the boy kept on denying it. He said two other fellows had stolen it and passed it on to him, but he was the one who was caught.

He kept on crying when we took him to the station. The local police officers took no notice and no one did anything to look after him because they often encounter this kind of situation. If the boy is still young there is no way to punish them, you can just hold them for 24 hours and then have to release them.

But my feelings told me that this boy was not the same as other Xinjiang kids involved in petty theft. His expression revealed terror and an appeal for help. When he calmed down I chatted with him, using an ordinary tone of voice as if I was talking to my younger brother.

The boy spoke the truth, surprising everyone in the station, getting down on his knees in front of me and begging me to send him back to Xinjiang.

His name was Ainiwaer, ten years old, from Yecheng (叶城) County in Kashgar. Last April, he was kidnapped by X and taken to inner China. To verify his story I asked his home phone number. Because he had lived with his grandma since he was very little he could only remember her number.

When I rang his grandma and asked if there was anyone in the family called Ainiwaer, I was told in a very cold tone of voice that he went missing a year ago. When I told them that the boy was by my side the whole family burst into tears.

According to regulations, people who have been detained are not supposed to leave the station, but I broke the rule for this boy, taking him outside to let him speak to his family on the phone. When he picked up the receiver and said “Hello, is mum there?”—the boy regarded his grandma as his mum—there was no reply because his grandma kept on crying, without saying anything. In the end, the grandma said: “Child, I really want to hear you speak, call me ‘mum’ again!” And then the boy called out loudly, “Mum!”

His tears kept falling, but these were completely different from the tears when he had just been arrested.

To check whether he had really been kidnapped, I got in touch with the local police station in Kashgar, and they confirmed that he had.

After speaking with his family, the boy took hold of my hand, saying “Uncle, I want to go home, I want to go home, don’t just release me.” Then he told me all about his experiences in Shenzhen after being kidnapped.

The case is still under investigation and the kidnapper has not been caught yet so for the time being I can’t reveal the details of how the kidnapping took place, but I believe the case will eventually be solved and then I can share the details with you.

There were scars all over the boy’s hands and body, some made by cigarette stubs, some made by wire cables.

He says he has been arrested many times and every time he is taken to the station he pleads with the police to contact his family and send him back to Xinjiang, but no one takes any notice. Within the same precinct that our station belongs to there is another station with a fully qualified Uighur police officer, Y. When the boy complained about his experiences to this fellow Xinjiang native, and knelt down to beg him for help in getting home, this Uighur policeman in Shenzhen said something you would hardly expect: “I don’t have enough money to spend on myself; where am I supposed to get the money to send you back home?” And after that he ignored the boy.

With the help of our station’s chief, I have already contacted the boy’s family, and by this afternoon the mother was already on a flight to Shenzhen. By the time I have finished writing this she might be here.

To tell the truth, I really don’t want to see the spectacle of the boy meeting his mother.

Just tonight, the long separated mother and child will see each other, I don’t know how it will turn out. If I have time to go online I will tell everyone the ending of the story.

After the boy was kidnapped and brought here [to Shenzhen] he was beaten by several Uighurs. Within the first week of his arriving in Shenzhen they forced him to learn how to steal. Every day he has to steal goods to a certain value, or he will be beaten and they will refuse to give him any food or drink.

When I took the boy into the interview waiting room he fell asleep on one of the chairs. He fell into a dead sleep and even though I called him several times he did not respond.

He told me that over the last two months he has slept on the streets or city squares nearly every night, and he passes every day in fear or being beaten or caught.

This morning I bought some cheap clothes for him and gave him a wash. After he had washed and put on clean clothes and was standing in my dormitory he smiled. This was the first time I had seen him smile, and perhaps it was his happiest smile since leaving home.

Right now, he is right by me watching me type, but he doesn’t understand that it is his story I am writing.

In the two days that I have been involved in this case, many people have warned me that it is none of my business, and my involvement could cause trouble. Other people have warned me that last year a Uighur police officer in Shenzhen was stabbed to death by Uighurs, and that that’s what happens to people who don’t mind their own business. Someone even told me that police officer Y is a smart guy and said that nowadays all Uighur police officers in Inner China are just like him.

I say, if our present society really only needs police officers like him, and if police officers in Inner China can only live safely by carrying on like that, I will hang up my uniform.

Translated by Mian Liping (勉丽萍) and Nick Young

The website where this story was posted, www.uighurbiz.cn, contributed CNY 2,000 towards the costs of returning Ainiwaer to his family