A Uyghur police officer in China's Xinjiang province who was said to have committed suicide was instead tortured to death for helping a camp detainee, Radio Free Asia (RSA) has reported.
The Washington-based publication said Nurmemet Yusup had died under mysterious circumstances during the first week of August. Citing a source, RFA said the cause of death was not immediately clear.
Later, Police officers said Nurmemet committed suicide during an interrogation.
Nurmemet, who worked at the police station in the capital of Xinjiang, was arrested in late July on suspicion of sympathizing with a criminal when he previously worked in a "re-education" camp.
According to the report, the Uyghur police officer was said to have "wiped vomited blood from the face of a camp detainee."
Nurmemet had been tortured to death and that his torturer had been disciplined, according to RFA. Nurmemet's death was a state secret and that a special notice had been issued for officers not to disclose the cause, said a police officer in Urumqi's Ulanbay district.
"We know this case, but this is a state secret," he said. "We can't tell you anything about this."
China has been rebuked globally for the crackdown on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.
Early this year, the United States became the first country in the world to declare the Chinese actions in Xinjiang as "genocide". In February, both the Canadian and Dutch parliaments adopted motions recognising the Uyghur crisis as genocide.
The latter became the first parliament in Europe to do so. In April, the United Kingdom also declared China's ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang a "genocide".
( With inputs from ANI )
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