‘Seldom uses front
door’: report reveals how China spies on Muslim minority
Authorities use an app to collect personal data
on Uighurs as part of a vast surveillance network, Human Rights Watch says
Using too much electricity or having acquaintances
abroad are among a list of reasons that prompt authorities in China’s western
Xinjiang region to investigate Uighurs and other Muslims who might be deemed “untrustworthy”
and sent to internment camps, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
The report, released on Thursday, analyses a
mobile app used by authorities in Xinjiang to collect personal data from ethnic
minorities, file reports about people and objects they find suspicious, and
carry out investigations.
The app is connected with the integrated joint
operations platform (IJOP), a Xinjiang policing program that aggregates people’s
data and flags those deemed potentially threatening. IJOP is part of a vast
surveillance network currently employed in the restive region that includes
frequent checkpoints equipped with face scanners, so-called “convenience”
police stations, and surveillance cameras inside homes.
Besides the pervasive surveillance, human
rights groups estimate about one million Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are
being held in political re-education camps, where they are taught communist
propaganda and forced to renounce their religion. China calls the camps
voluntary “training centres” and has likened them to boarding schools, but
survivors speak of brainwashing, torture and abuse inside the facilities.
Data collection, including people’s blood type,
height and religious practices, has been central to the crackdown, which
started in late 2016, the rights group says.
(...)
“People’s freedom of movement is restricted to
varying degrees depending on the level of threat authorities perceive they
pose, determined by factors programmed into the system,” the report says.
Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd
Vocabulary:
Acquaintances: Connections
Prompt to: To
prompt someone to do something means to make them decide to do it.
Deemed: Considered
Untrustworthy: “No de
fiar”
Restive: If you are restive, you
are impatient, bored, or dissatisfied.
Convenience: “De
comodidad”
Surveillance: Surveillance
is the careful watching of someone, especially by an organization such as the
police or the army. “Vigilancia”.
Pick out: Selecting
Mistrusts: “Desconfiar”
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