Some activists are being pressured by the very people they are trying to help.

Gaziz Ornykhanuly said that shortly after he provided video testimony to Atajurt about his wife’s detention, she was released from a camp. But she is unable to leave Xinjiang to join him and their two daughters in Kazakhstan. In phone calls, he said, she insists she is happy to stay.

“China is the biggest country in the world, the biggest economy,” she said, according to Mr. Ornykhanuly. “Why would we leave China?”

He said she had urged him — under coercion, he believes — to stop working with Atajurt, the activist group. But he said he would continue to do so, by translating statements about missing people into Russian.

“By helping people, I can ease this pain in my heart,” he said. “I’m witnessing all that has happened to Kazakhs and Uighurs in China, and I want to at least let the world know.”

