Al Jazeera News :
A big-data program in China’s Xinjiang “arbitrarily selects” Muslims for detention, flagging behaviour such as wearing a veil, studying the Quran or going on the Hajj pilgrimage as reasons for arrest, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
In a new report on Wednesday, the rights group said it analysed a leaked list of more than 2,000 detainees in Xinjiang’s Aksu prefecture and found that the programme – known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) – also flagged people for their relationships, their communications, their travel histories, or for being related to someone the authorities consider suspicious.
“The Aksu List provides further insights into how China’s brutal repression of Xinjiang’s Turkic Muslims is being turbocharged by technology,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at HRW.
“The Chinese government owes answers to the families of those on the list: Why were they detained, and where are they now?”
The United Nations estimates that more than one million Turkic Muslims – most of them ethnic Uighurs – have been detained in camps in far-western Xinjiang. Activists say the purpose of the detention was to “erase the ethnic and religious identities of” Turkic Muslims and ensure their loyalty to the Chinese government.
Beijing denies the accusations, describing the camps as vocational training centres to help stamp out “religious extremism” in the troubled province.
HRW said the Aksu List – which dates from late 2018 – shows further evidence of the role big data and technology plays in helping officials select targets for “coerced thought transformation”. Earlier this year, campaigners documented how officials in Xinjiang’s Karakax used the IJOP to assess whether an individual should remain in detention. A Karakax official dismissed that report as a “fabrication”.
A big-data program in China’s Xinjiang “arbitrarily selects” Muslims for detention, flagging behaviour such as wearing a veil, studying the Quran or going on the Hajj pilgrimage as reasons for arrest, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
In a new report on Wednesday, the rights group said it analysed a leaked list of more than 2,000 detainees in Xinjiang’s Aksu prefecture and found that the programme – known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) – also flagged people for their relationships, their communications, their travel histories, or for being related to someone the authorities consider suspicious.
“The Aksu List provides further insights into how China’s brutal repression of Xinjiang’s Turkic Muslims is being turbocharged by technology,” said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at HRW.
“The Chinese government owes answers to the families of those on the list: Why were they detained, and where are they now?”
The United Nations estimates that more than one million Turkic Muslims – most of them ethnic Uighurs – have been detained in camps in far-western Xinjiang. Activists say the purpose of the detention was to “erase the ethnic and religious identities of” Turkic Muslims and ensure their loyalty to the Chinese government.
Beijing denies the accusations, describing the camps as vocational training centres to help stamp out “religious extremism” in the troubled province.
HRW said the Aksu List – which dates from late 2018 – shows further evidence of the role big data and technology plays in helping officials select targets for “coerced thought transformation”. Earlier this year, campaigners documented how officials in Xinjiang’s Karakax used the IJOP to assess whether an individual should remain in detention. A Karakax official dismissed that report as a “fabrication”.
