(CNN)The raids started after midnight in Xinjiang.
Hundreds of police officers armed with rifles went house to house in Uyghur communities in the far western region of China, pulling people from their homes, handcuffing and hooding them, and threatening to shoot them if they resisted, a former Chinese police detective tells CNN.
"We took (them) all forcibly overnight," he said. "If there were hundreds of people in one county in this area, then you had to arrest these hundreds of people."
The ex-detective turned whistleblower asked to be identified only as Jiang, to protect his family members who remain in China.
In a three-hour interview with CNN, conducted in Europe where he is now in exile, Jiang revealed rare details on what he described as a systematic campaign of torture against ethnic Uyghurs in the region's detention camp system, claims China has denied for years.
"Kick them, beat them (until they're) bruised and swollen," Jiang said, recalling how he and his colleagues used to interrogate detainees in police detention centers. "Until they kneel on the floor crying."
During his time in Xinjiang, Jiang said every new detainee was beaten during the interrogation process -- including men, women and children as young as 14.
"Everyone uses different methods. Some even use a wrecking bar, or iron chains with locks."
Jiang, former Chinese detective
The methods included shackling people to a metal or wooden "tiger chair" -- chairs designed to immobilize suspects -- hanging people from the ceiling, sexual violence, electrocutions, and waterboarding. Inmates were often forced to stay awake for days, and denied food and water, he said.
"Everyone uses different methods. Some even use a wrecking bar, or iron chains with locks," Jiang said. "Police would step on the suspect's face and tell him to confess."
The suspects were accused of terror offenses, said Jiang, but he believes that "none" of the hundreds of prisoners he was involved in arresting had committed a crime. "They are ordinary people," he said.
The torture in police detention centers only stopped when the suspects confessed, Jiang said. Then they were usually transferred to another facility, like a prison or an internment camp manned by prison guards.
In order to help verify his testimony, Jiang showed CNN his police uniform, official documents, photographs, videos, and identification from his time in China, most of which can't be published to protect his identity. CNN has submitted detailed questions to the Chinese government about his accusations, so far without a response.
CNN cannot independently confirm Jiang's claims, but multiple details of his recollections echo the experiences of two Uyghur victims CNN interviewed for this report. More than 50 former inmates of the camp system also provided testimony to Amnesty International for a 160-page report released in June, "'Like We Were Enemies in a War': China's Mass Internment, Torture, and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang."
Inside the police detention centers, the main goal was to extract a confession from detainees, with sexual torture being one of the tactics, Jiang said.
"If you want people to confess, you use the electric baton with two sharp tips on top," Jiang said. "We would tie two electrical wires on the tips and set the wires on their genitals while the person is tied up."
One "very common measure" of torture and dehumanization was for guards to order prisoners to rape and abuse the new male inmates, Jiang said.
Abduweli Ayup, a 48-year-old Uyghur scholar from Xinjiang, said he was detained on August 19, 2013, when police carrying rifles surrounded a kindergarten he had opened to teach young children their native language.
On his first night in a police detention center in the city of Kashgar, Ayup says he was gang-raped by more than a dozen Chinese inmates, who had been directed to do this by "three or four" prison guards who also witnessed the assault.
"The prison guards, they asked me to take off my underwear" before telling him to bend over, he said. "Don't do this, I cried. Please don't do this."
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Hundreds of police officers armed with rifles went house to house in Uyghur communities in the far western region of China, pulling people from their homes, handcuffing and hooding them, and threatening to shoot them if they resisted, a former Chinese police detective tells CNN.
"We took (them) all forcibly overnight," he said. "If there were hundreds of people in one county in this area, then you had to arrest these hundreds of people."
The ex-detective turned whistleblower asked to be identified only as Jiang, to protect his family members who remain in China.
In a three-hour interview with CNN, conducted in Europe where he is now in exile, Jiang revealed rare details on what he described as a systematic campaign of torture against ethnic Uyghurs in the region's detention camp system, claims China has denied for years.
"Kick them, beat them (until they're) bruised and swollen," Jiang said, recalling how he and his colleagues used to interrogate detainees in police detention centers. "Until they kneel on the floor crying."
During his time in Xinjiang, Jiang said every new detainee was beaten during the interrogation process -- including men, women and children as young as 14.
"Everyone uses different methods. Some even use a wrecking bar, or iron chains with locks."
Jiang, former Chinese detective
The methods included shackling people to a metal or wooden "tiger chair" -- chairs designed to immobilize suspects -- hanging people from the ceiling, sexual violence, electrocutions, and waterboarding. Inmates were often forced to stay awake for days, and denied food and water, he said.
"Everyone uses different methods. Some even use a wrecking bar, or iron chains with locks," Jiang said. "Police would step on the suspect's face and tell him to confess."
The suspects were accused of terror offenses, said Jiang, but he believes that "none" of the hundreds of prisoners he was involved in arresting had committed a crime. "They are ordinary people," he said.
The torture in police detention centers only stopped when the suspects confessed, Jiang said. Then they were usually transferred to another facility, like a prison or an internment camp manned by prison guards.
In order to help verify his testimony, Jiang showed CNN his police uniform, official documents, photographs, videos, and identification from his time in China, most of which can't be published to protect his identity. CNN has submitted detailed questions to the Chinese government about his accusations, so far without a response.
CNN cannot independently confirm Jiang's claims, but multiple details of his recollections echo the experiences of two Uyghur victims CNN interviewed for this report. More than 50 former inmates of the camp system also provided testimony to Amnesty International for a 160-page report released in June, "'Like We Were Enemies in a War': China's Mass Internment, Torture, and Persecution of Muslims in Xinjiang."
Inside the police detention centers, the main goal was to extract a confession from detainees, with sexual torture being one of the tactics, Jiang said.
"If you want people to confess, you use the electric baton with two sharp tips on top," Jiang said. "We would tie two electrical wires on the tips and set the wires on their genitals while the person is tied up."
One "very common measure" of torture and dehumanization was for guards to order prisoners to rape and abuse the new male inmates, Jiang said.
Abduweli Ayup, a 48-year-old Uyghur scholar from Xinjiang, said he was detained on August 19, 2013, when police carrying rifles surrounded a kindergarten he had opened to teach young children their native language.
On his first night in a police detention center in the city of Kashgar, Ayup says he was gang-raped by more than a dozen Chinese inmates, who had been directed to do this by "three or four" prison guards who also witnessed the assault.
"The prison guards, they asked me to take off my underwear" before telling him to bend over, he said. "Don't do this, I cried. Please don't do this."
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'Some are just psychopaths': Chinese detective in exile reveals extent of torture against Uyghurs | CNN
A Chinese policeman turned whistleblower has revealed rare details on what he described as a systematic campaign of torture against ethnic Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region's detention camps -- claims China has denied for years.
, hunting birds in fields to reduce food shortage and creating worst ever famine .
