The alarm rings at 5am every morning in Yerzhan's overcrowded concrete cell. He dresses in a thin blue uniform before armed guards escort him to a bathroom, where he has minutes to wash under supervision.

At 7am there is breakfast: tea and a single steamed bun for each of the cell’s 18 inmates.

For the rest of the day, Yerzhan is forced to sit straight on a stool, learn Mandarin, sing patriotic songs and memorise ruling Communist Party ideology.

In order to receive a small portion of rice at noon and 6pm he, like all the others, must praise the Chinese president and shout “Long live Xi Jinping!”

Those who refuse are electrocuted with a cattle prod that causes their limbs to spasm uncontrollably.

In a facility for women when it is Amina’s turn to be on suicide watch one night, guards burst into the cell, put a black hood over the head of one of the inmates and take her away. She returns the next morning crying, barely able to speak; one morning, she doesn't come back.

This is life inside China’s internment camps, according to Telegraph interviews with eight former detainees that provide the most detailed and current picture of conditions.