For decades, Kasim Kashgar has lived in fear: first as a Uyghur living in China's Xinjiang region under Beijing's repressive policies, and later as an exile, acutely aware that speaking out could put his family in China at risk. As a journalist covering Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities for VOA News, Kasim wrote under a pen name. In 2023, the year his asylum was granted, he decided to speak out. This is his story.