It's disturbingly easy to forget that China is operating a genocidal program of ethnic cleansing against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang province. The secrecy of the concentration camps and the chaos of the world makes it all rather abstract.

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But periodically, a leak or a first-hand account will bring the issue back to the fore, and each time that happens, it's a chance to galvanize action. We've missed a lot of these chances.

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In 2017, the Chinese state announced that it would collect the DNA of every person in the province.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171214/07293538807/china-is-building-ultimate-surveillance-tool-dna-database-every-adult-resident-troubled-xinjiang-region.shtml

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China Is Building The Ultimate Surveillance Tool: A DNA Database Of Every Adult Resident In...

It's no secret that the two regions most affected by China's strict controls are Tibet and Xinjiang, the vast and troubled...

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20171214/07293538807/china-is-building-ultimate-surveillance-tool-dna-database-every-adult-resident-troubled-xinjiang-region.shtml
Later that year, we learned that cops were using ubiquitous stop-and-frisks to force Uyghurs to install surveillance apps on their phones:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/china-forces-muslim-minority-to-install-spyware-on-their-phones/

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China Forces Muslim Minority to Install Spyware on Their Phones

Chinese authorities in the province of Xinjiang are forcing locals of the Uyghur Muslim minority to install an app on their phones that will allow the government to scan their device for "terrorist...

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/government/china-forces-muslim-minority-to-install-spyware-on-their-phones/
In 2018, a redditor visiting Xinjiang was forced to install the surveillance app at the border:

https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_border_police_installed_software_on_my/e03ae1a/

It wasn't a one-off - soon, every tourist was having the app installed during border inspections:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/02/chinese-border-guards-surveillance-app-tourists-phones

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Chinese border guards put secret surveillance app on tourists' phones

Software extracts emails, texts and contacts and could be used to track movements

https://www.reddit.com/r/security/comments/8ofiiw/chinese_border_police_installed_software_on_my/e03ae1a/
When @hrw reverse-engineered the app, they revealed just how far-reaching and sinister it was - a system for algorithmic surveillance, suspicion and accusation:

https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2019/05/02/china-how-mass-surveillance-works-xinjiang

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How Mass Surveillance Works in Xinjiang, China

‘Reverse Engineering’ Police App Reveals Profiling and Monitoring Strategies

https://www.hrw.org/video-photos/interactive/2019/05/02/china-how-mass-surveillance-works-xinjiang
But as chilling as these dry technological accounts were, they were still technical, not personal. It was only when they were augmented by leaks about the plans for ethnic cleansing and survivor accounts from the camps that the true horror set in.

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The pic of hundreds of prisoners kneeling in ranks on a train platform, shaven heads bowed:

https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1175353408749891584

And then the leaked Chinese intelligence memos detailing the plan to open 500 concentration camps disguised as "training centers."

https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/read-the-china-cables-documents/

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The camp survivor who told of punitive rape, forced labor, torture and medical experimentation:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-xinjiang-uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xi-jinping-persecution-a9165896.html

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Muslim prisoners in China’s Xinjiang concentration camps subjected to gang rape and medical...

‘I said to myself that if I was already fated to die, at least I was going to try to escape,’ survivor says

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-xinjiang-uighur-muslim-detention-camps-xi-jinping-persecution-a9165896.html
And the hundreds of pages of leaked state docs revealing that the cruelty was part of the plan, the "no mercy" plan inspired by America's decades-long domestic "war on terror."

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html

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‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims (Publis...

More than 400 pages of internal Chinese documents provide an unprecedented inside look at the crackdown on ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html
Gradually, the connection between the camps, the apps, and everyday life came into focus. The camps were everting, thanks to the apps, turning Xinjiang's cities into "smart cities" that operated as satellites of the camps:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/04/world/asia/xinjiang-china-surveillance-prison.html

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How China Turned a City Into a Prison (Published 2019)

Children are interrogated. Neighbors become informants. Mosques are monitored. Cameras are everywhere.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/04/world/asia/xinjiang-china-surveillance-prison.html
And every month, fresh reminders that Xinjiang is part of the "supply chain": that our electronics, covid supplies, and gewgaws are being made by terrorized slaves as part of a wider plan to erase a people:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/15/xinjiang-us-to-block-chinese-forced-labour-products-as-eu-warns-on-trade

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Xinjiang: US to block Chinese 'forced labour' products as EU warns on trade

Washington says ‘vocational’ centres are concentration camps as EU calls for independent observers in China’s western province

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/15/xinjiang-us-to-block-chinese-forced-labour-products-as-eu-warns-on-trade
We've squandered so many opportunities to treat the situation in Xinjiang with the alarm it deserves, and yet they keep coming, bought with the blood of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.

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Today, the @intercepted podcast reports on another set of leaks, these describing the terror of everyday life outside of the camps - cities overshadowed by surveillance and the looming threat of being taken away.

https://theintercept.com/2021/02/03/intercepted-china-uyghur-muslim-surveillance-police/

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Inside China’s Police State Tactics Against Muslims

A new report from The Intercept provides a raw glimpse into the persecution and sweeping internment of Muslims in northwest China’s Xinjiang region.

https://theintercept.com/2021/02/03/intercepted-china-uyghur-muslim-surveillance-police/
Parents separated from their children, families forced to install cameras inside their homes, forced sterilizations and abortions, desecration of cemeteries, torture and sexual violence.

It's haunting, deeply disturbing reportage, but we can't afford to look away.

eof/
If you'd like a surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free version of this as a blog post, here's a link to it on my site, Pluralistic: https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/03/never-again/#never-again
You can follow @doctorow.
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