any more children. There were also injections, which “were just one of the methods of their cruel, heartless torturing and genocide policy,” she says.
The day she was taken to the black room she found a chamber with a table covered with tools and torture devices including stun guns, cudgels and iron rods to fix hands and feet in painful positions. The walls were hung with medieval-looking weaponry: an implement for removing finger nails; a spear; chairs with straps, bars and ominous holes. She was placed in an electric chair and interrogated by two men, including one in a mask, about the shepherd woman.
When she refused to admit any guilt they sent a current through her body and rained blows on her head, laughing as they did so. She kept losing consciousness and, realising she had to tell them what they wanted to hear, she confessed that she knew the woman from before.
Her torturers eventually lost interest and she was taken back to her cell. The old shepherd lady was accused of being a spy and when she denied it, Sauytbay says, she was taken to the black room where her fingernails were removed.
One day Sauytbay joined 100 prisoners who were summoned to a room where a woman of 20 or 21 was made to confess to texting good wishes to a friend on a religious holiday. She was thrown to the ground and gang-raped by three men. Guards watched the other inmates as the woman begged for help and when prisoners stood up to protest, they were immediately taken away. It was a test, says Sauytbay, to see who had been brought into line….
It's a grim read.
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