“My role was to feed information to officials. I reported on everything people did – what they ate, drank, what they did in private in their homes, whether it was friends or relatives, I shared it all,” Amat said.
He said he started spying in 2012 because his mother was taken hostage, and officials tortured her and threatened to keep her unless he agreed to cooperate.
He claimed he had been sent to spy abroad between 2012 and 2018 in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey, Al Jazeera reported.
He added that Beijing has “countless” such informants across the world, some of whom also abduct Uygurs and bring them back to China.
There are around 50,000 Uygur refugees in Turkey, which has linguistic and cultural connections with the Uygurs.
Many have fled a crackdown on Uygur Muslims in northwest China, where camps and prisons have been used against them in the Xinjiang region.
Beijing says they are vocational centres aimed at combating extremism
