"One by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. For years, the Chinese government had persecuted the Uyghur people, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China. In 2017, the repression assumed a terrifying new scale as the government established an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Before long, more than a million people had vanished into a vast network of internment camps. Tahir, a prominent poet and intellectual, was no stranger to persecution. In 1996, he was arrested trying to leave China, tortured until he confessed to fabricated charges, and sent to a labor camp. But he could never have predicted the government's radical solution to the Uyghur question two decades later. Was the first sign when Tahir was interrogated after a phone call with a poet in the Netherlands? Or when a friend was sentenced to life in prison after advocating for Uyghurs' legal rights? Perhaps it was when the police seized Uyghurs' radios and cut them off from the outside world. After the mass internment of Uyghurs began, Tahir watched his neighborhood empty out and knew the police would be coming for him soon. One night, while his daughters slept, he placed by his door a sturdy pair of shoes, a sweater, and a coat in case the police arrived in the middle of the night. It was clear to Tahir and his wife that fleeing the country was the family's only hope. Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir's homeland. Among leading Uyghur intellectuals, he is the only one known to have escaped China since the mass internments began ... His book is a call for the world to awaken to the catastrophe and a tribute to his fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced"-- Provided by publisher.
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