She said: "My hands bled from their beatings, each time I was electrocuted, my whole body would shake violently and I could feel the pain in my veins, I thought I would rather die than go through this torture and begged them to kill me.

She said: "There were around 60 people kept in a 430 square feet [40 m2] cell so at nights, 10 to 15 women would stand up while the rest of us would sleep on sideways so we could fit, and then we would rotate every 2 hours.

[16] In 2019 What Has Happened to Me – A Testimony of a Uyghur Woman, a Japanese comic book recounting the story told by Mihrigul Tursun, illustrated by artist Tomomi Shimizu, has become a viral hit on the Internet.

[17][18][19][20] Responding to a CNN report,[21] in 2019 China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying denied Tursun's allegations and gave their own account of the events.

According to Hua, Tursun was taken into custody by Qiemo County police for 20 days from 21 April – 20 May 2017 on suspicion of inciting ethnic hatred and discrimination but she was never jailed or put in a "vocational training" center (the government's term for the internment camps).