Police in Xinjiang have relied on a list of 50,000 multimedia files determined to be “violent and terrorist” to flag Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim residents for interrogation, according to a report from Human Rights Watch released on Wednesday.
Among the findings by the New York-based group was that Uyghurs could trigger a police interrogation just by storing the Quran on their phone.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the use of the list is another example of China’s “abusive use of surveillance technology in Xinjiang.”
The list is used by police to compare against data received from two apps that authorities have required residents of Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, to install on their phones, according to Maya Wang, the acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“Essentially, these apps on people’s phones are checking against this list – the master list – as well as searching for other information,” she told Radio Free Asia in an interview.
Police in Xinjiang have relied on a list of 50,000 multimedia files determined to be “violent and terrorist” to flag Uyghur and other Turkic Muslim residents for interrogation, according to a report from Human Rights Watch released on Wednesday.
Among the findings by the New York-based group was that Uyghurs could trigger a police interrogation just by storing the Quran on their phone.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the use of the list is another example of China’s “abusive use of surveillance technology in Xinjiang.”
The list is used by police to compare against data received from two apps that authorities have required residents of Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, to install on their phones, according to Maya Wang, the acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“Essentially, these apps on people’s phones are checking against this list – the master list – as well as searching for other information,” she told Radio Free Asia in an interview.
