For more than thirty years, Ainiwa Niyazi devoted his life to China's Communist Party, teaching children about the virtues of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping at a school just outside Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang autonomous region - home to Muslim Uighurs.
Niyazi was promoted to middle school principal, before becoming the party's vice secretary for education in his hometown of Turpan.
He was a popular and respected member of the community - not so much for his party credentials but because of his kindly nature.
Then in early April 2018, the authorities came knocking on Nyazi's door. They told him to follow them to the police station without giving him any explanation.
Soon after, Niyazi vanished. He did not even get to say goodbye to his wife, Isarhan Ehmet, who returned home later that day and wondered why her husband had suddenly disappeared.
Niyazi is among hundreds of thousands of Uighurs thought swept up in the mass detention of Turkic-speaking Muslims across China's westernmost territory.
Even his "elite" status as a local communist official was no protection.
Other exiled Uighurs who spoke to Al Jazeera also said that their relatives, who had been loyal to the Communist Party for years, met the same fate as Niyazi. Now they are calling on the international community to put more pressure on Beijing to release their family members.
According to the United Nations, at least one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities are being held in detention. The number represents about 12.5 percent of the estimated eight million Uighurs in China.
China has denied that Uighurs are being held against their will. Beijing has described the facilities as "training centres" or "re-education" camps aimed at countering the "terrorist threat" and "extremism" in Xinjiang.
Einar Tangen, a political analyst who advises the Chinese government, also told Al Jazeera that Beijing considers the re-education and training a necessary measure to address poverty.
"This is not something that they are doing because they are trying to be mean to the Uighurs. They actually think that this is helping," he said.
"They [Beijing] cannot afford to have people who have no future. It is not just about terrorism. They are really anti-poverty."
'I cannot stay silent'
Whatever the government's motivations, Aiziheer Ainiwaer kept silent for months after he heard his father had gone missing. While he was in exile in Belgium he worried about what might happen to his father and other family members who were still living in China.
"It was really difficult for me to not do anything about my father's situation," Ainiwaer told Al Jazeera, adding that he only learned about what happened through third-party sources, as direct contact with his parents was cut off in early 2018 before his father was imprisoned.
But as his despair over his father's situation grew Ainiwaer decided to make public his father's detention, taking his campaign online and on social media, directly challenging official accounts about what was taking place in Xinjiang.
Then last weekend, he received unexpected news. His father had been released after 18 months of what Ainiwaer describes as "arbitrary imprisonment".
"He seemed to be fine, although he looked 10 years older than when he was arrested," Ainiwaer said after speaking to his father in a video call. While his mother welcomed the release, she has developed health problems "due to the stress and sadness", he added.
Ainiwaer believes that speaking out helped in his father's cause, and he urged other Uighurs to do the same to put more pressure on the government of President Xi Jinping.
"I encourage every other Uighur to stand up for their loved ones. Stay strong and keep fighting until the end. Don't give up."
In July, Shohrat Zakir, Xinjiang's Uighur governor, said that "more than 90 percent" of those in the "training centres" had been released.
The announcement prompted Uighurs outside China to start a campaign for the Chinese government to substantiate the claim, using the hashtag #provethe90% on social media.
Another Chinese official also said that Uighurs undergoing "re-education" were allowed to "request time off" and to "regularly go home".
Adiljan Abdurihim, secretary of the Norwegian Uyghur Committee, was sceptical about the Chinese claims.
"We heard similar histories, but we doubt that it is fully true," he told Al Jazeera.
"It can be a new tactic to silence ongoing testimonies, which we are try(ing) to encourage people to submit."
Among the Uighur community in Norway, Abdurihim said they had collected statements from 80 families whose relatives had been detained.
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