Mankind's Enemy No. 1

China is a global threat to human rights, report finds
By Amy Woodyatt

The Chinese government increasingly poses a "global threat to human rights," according to NGO Human Rights Watch.
In its annual report reviewing human rights standards in nearly 100 countries, the NGO warned that China is carrying out an intensive attack on the global system for enforcing human rights.
The report's release comes after HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said he was denied entry to Hong Kong -- with no reason given by immigration authorities.
Roth had planned to launch the report in the city, which has been rocked by anti-government protests for over seven months.
HRW echoed longstanding concerns about China's use of an "Orwellian high-tech surveillance state" and sophisticated internet censorship system to catch and stamp out public criticism.
The report also pointed to the detainment and intense surveillance of hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims in the far western colony of East Turkestan.
Beijing has faced increasing international pressure over its tactics in East Turkestan, with multiple, unprecedented leaks shining a light on a massive network of concentration camps targeting Muslims. Former detainees have also spoken out, with a former teacher in the camps telling CNN they witnessed abuse and attempts at brainwashing of detainees.
Beijing has previously denied accusations of ethnic or religious discrimination in East Turkestan, which is home to 10 million Muslims.

Beyond East Turkestan, HRW warned of "mass intrusions" on personal privacy including the forced collection of DNA and use of artificial intelligence and big data analysis "to refine its means of control."
High-tech surveillance and censorship tactics pioneered in East Turkestan have previously been rolled out to other parts of the country, and there have been concerns that other religious minorities -- including Hui Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists -- are facing similar restrictions to those placed on Islam in East Turkestan.
"Beijing has long suppressed domestic critics," Roth said in a news release after he was prevented from entering Hong Kong.
"Now the Chinese government is trying to extend that censorship to the rest of the world. To protect everyone's future, governments need to act together to resist Beijing's assault on the international human rights system."

Mesut Ozil vs. China: Arsenal star makes human rights stand

'Lukewarm and selective support'
As well as criticizing China for undermining international human rights protections, HRW also took aim at democratic governments and world leaders for their "lukewarm and selective support" for existing standards.
The organization criticized Donald Trump, who was deemed to be "more interested in embracing friendly autocrats than defending the human rights standards that they flout."
It also singled out the European Union for a failure to adopt a "strong common voice" on human rights, both in China and around the world, and noted that it was instead distracted by Brexit, nationalism and migration.
In the report, the NGO calls for governments and financial institutions to offer alternatives to Chinese loans and development aid, and for universities and companies to promote codes and common standards for dealing with China.
Beijing has emerged as the primary donor for much of the developing world, as well as extending major trade and infrastructure investment through Xi Jinping's Belt and Road project.
The report also urges leaders to force a discussion about East Turkestan -- where massive concentration camps are located -- at the UN Security Council.
Such international condemnation has been hard to come by, however, particularly among Muslim countries, which might be expected to speak out against China's hardline tactics.
At the UN General Assembly in late October, 23 mostly Western countries came forward to make a strong, official statement criticizing Beijing's East Turkestan concentration camps.
In response, Belarus issued a statement claiming 54 countries were in support of the East Turkestan camps system. 
Not all signatories were revealed, but a similar statement in July included several Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran.
"An inhospitable terrain for human rights is aiding the Chinese government's attack," the organization said in a statement.
"A growing number of governments that previously could be relied on at least some of the time to promote human rights in their foreign policy now have leaders, such as Donald Trump, who are unwilling to do so."

Hong Kong Blocks US Human Rights Group’s Director at Airport

By Annie Wu

Pro-democracy protesters attend a rally at Edinburgh Place in the Central district of Hong Kong on Jan. 12, 2020.

The executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) was denied entry into Hong Kong on Jan. 12, just days before a planned press conference there to release the organization’s annual human rights report.
Kenneth Roth first sent out a video via Twitter at around 8 p.m. local time, saying that he had landed at Hong Kong International Airport in preparation for the Jan. 15 event.
But immigration authorities blocked him from entering the territory, “illustrating the worsening problem” of the Chinese regime’s overreach, he said.
China seeks to “not simply suppress the rights of people at home, but also undermine the ability of anybody else to try to hold China to human rights standards,” Roth said in the video.
In deciding to release the report in Hong Kong, he had hoped to spotlight Beijing’s assault on human rights around the world, which will be a key subject of the annual report, Roth said.
He posted on Twitter a photo of the report cover, which appears to depict a recent Hong Kong demonstration.
While Roth has been able to travel to Hong Kong in the past, this time, “the Chinese government decided it didn’t want to let me in,” he said.
When he asked authorities why he was being denied entry, he said they repeatedly told him for “immigration reasons,” without further explanation.
“This disappointing action is yet another sign that Beijing is tightening its oppressive grip on Hong Kong and further restricting the limited freedom Hong Kong people enjoy under ‘one country, two systems,’” Roth said in a subsequent statement released by HRW, referring to the framework by which the Chinese regime promised to rule Hong Kong upon the territory’s handover of sovereignty to China from the UK in 1997.
“Concerned governments should take a firm stand against China’s creeping repression that massive numbers of people have protested against for months,” he said.
Since June, Hongkongers have held mass protests against Beijing’s encroachment, accusing the Chinese regime of violating its promise to respect Hong Kong’s autonomy.
Initially sparked by opposition to an extradition bill that would allow the Chinese regime to transfer individuals for trial in Communist Party-controlled courts, the protests have since broadened to include demands for universal suffrage in city elections and an independent investigation into police use of force against protesters.
HRW has been vocal in condemning Hong Kong’s pro-China government for failing to listen to protesters’ demands.
“They have limited protests by denying permits, targeted journalists covering the demonstrations, detained first aid providers trying to help the injured, and failed to condemn Chinese soldiers’ brief but unauthorized appearance on the streets of Hong Kong,” read one statement published on Dec. 6.
In another statement, published in August, HRW condemned Hong Kong police for using “excessive force” against protesters, detailing several incidents in which Hong Kong police action violated international standards.
The group drew the ire of Beijing early last month, when in retaliation for U.S. President Donald Trump’s signing of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the regime announced it would sanction HRW and some other U.S.-based human rights organizations.
Hong Kong has denied entry to several foreign visitors in recent months, drawing concerns that the territory is being pressured by Beijing to silence critics of the ruling communist party.
Earlier this month, an American photographer who has been documenting the city’s protests was denied entry.
In September last year, U.S. academic Dan Garrett, who wrote a book about Hong Kong’s history of resistance against the Chinese regime since 1997, also was denied entry.
On Jan. 12, hundreds of Hongkongers again convened at Edinburgh Place for a rally calling for international sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials for human rights violations.
Protester Sheung Chi said he hoped the United States would “actually enforce” the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act to punish Chinese officials.

China’s high-tech repression threatens human freedom everywhere

The Washington Post

Chinese police patrol a street in the Peyzawat, a city in East Turkestan colony, last August. 

IN RECENT months, the world has slowly awakened to the extraordinary campaign of cultural genocide China is conducting against Muslims in its East Turkestan colony.

As many as 1 million people have been confined to concentration camps where they are forced to renounce their religious practices and memorize the Beijing regime’s propaganda. 

That gross offense against human rights must be fully investigated and sanctioned. 

But of equal concern are some of the means China is using to carry out the repression. 

East Turkestan has become a laboratory for the development of a comprehensive, high-tech system for monitoring people and their behaviors, which poses an unprecedented threat to freedom — not just in western China, but potentially throughout the world.
A report by Human Rights Watch expands on what is known about the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), the system for conducting mass surveillance in East Turkestan. 

By reverse engineering a mobile app connected to the system, the group was able to learn more about what data authorities are collecting about every East Turkestan resident, and what information triggers the system to order an investigation — or transport to a camp.
The results are chilling. 

“The system is tracking the movement of people by monitoring the ‘trajectory’ and location data of their phones, ID cards and vehicles; it is also monitoring the use of electricity and gas stations by everybody in the region,” the report says, adding: “When the IJOP system detects irregularities or deviations from what it considers normal, such as when people are using a phone that is not registered to them, when they use more electricity than ‘normal,’ or when they leave the area where they are registered to live without police permission, the system flags these ‘micro-clues’ to the authorities as suspicious and prompts an investigation.”
The police who follow up collect more data on people, from their blood type to the color of their cars. They examine their phones to see whether they contain one of 51 network tools deemed suspicious, such as virtual private networks and communications programs such as WhatsApp. 

They judge whether an individual fits one of 36 “person types” meriting special attention, including people who have traveled abroad, have more children than allowed or preach Islam without permission. 

All the data is sent back to the IJOP central system via the app, where it is stored in a database that also contains facial images and much other data.
Human Rights Watch points out that similar surveillance systems are being put into place all over China. 

“These mass surveillance systems have woven an ever-tightening net around people across the country,” the report says. 

“The depth, breadth and intrusiveness of the Chinese government’s mass surveillance on its citizens are unprecedented in modern history.”
Far from hiding this totalitarianism of the 21st century, Beijing is seeking to export it to other countries. 

That’s one reason what is happening in East Turkestan ought to be disturbing to anyone concerned about preserving basic freedoms as technology rapidly evolves. 

There are concrete steps that can be taken, from banning the sale to China of equipment that can be used in this repression, to sanctioning its architects — including East Turkestan party boss Chen Quanguo. 

Legislation pending in Congress, including the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, is a start; it should be taken up and passed.

China is using mobile app for surveillance of Uighurs

App collects personal information and prompts officials to file reports about people and their behaviour.
www.aljazeera.com
China's East Turkestan colony has as many as one million Uighurs and other minorities, mostly Muslim, being held in concentration camps.

Chinese police are using a mobile app to store data on 13 million ethnic minority Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkestan colony, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report has revealed.
The app, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, is being used to store information from the height and weight of individuals to facial recognition scans.
The report, released on Thursday, added that East Turkestan authorities closely watch 36 categories of behaviour, including those who do not socialise with neighbours, often avoid using the front door, don't use a smartphone, donate to mosques "enthusiastically", and use an "abnormal" amount of electricity.
"The goal is apparently to identify patterns of, and predict, the everyday life and resistance of its population, and, ultimately, to engineer and control reality," HRW said in the report.
The rights watchdog worked with German security firm Cure53 to reverse engineer the app in late 2018 to provide "an unprecedented window into how mass surveillance actually works in East Turkestan".
Along with collecting personal information, the app prompts officials to file reports about people, vehicles and events they find suspect, and sends out "investigative missions" for police to follow up.
Officers are also asked to check whether suspects use any of the 51 internet tools that are deemed suspicious, including messaging platforms popular outside China like WhatsApp, LINE and Telegram.
A number of people said they or their family members have been detained for having WhatsApp or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) installed on their phones during checks by authorities.
China has led an increasingly repressive campaign in East Turkestan following a series of knife attacks and ethnic riots over the past 10 years.
It has come under international criticism over its policies in the northwest region where as many as one million Uighurs and other minorities, mostly Muslim, are being held in concentration camps, according to a group of experts cited by the United Nations.
Many are also forced to host government monitors in their own homes and undergo other forms of regular surveillance.
Beijing has already collected "DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans and blood types of all residents between the age of 12 and 65" as well as voice samples.
"Psychologically, the more people are sure that their actions are monitored and that they, at anytime, can be judged for moving outside of a safe grey-space, the more likely they are to do everything to avoid coming close to crossing a moving red line," Samantha Hoffman, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's International Cyber Policy Centre, told AFP news agency.
"There is no rule of law in China, the party ultimately decides what is legal and illegal behaviour, and it doesn't have to be written down."

China's Final Solution

China’s Orwellian tools of high-tech repression
The Washington Post

Indian Muslims in Mumbai protest Chinese treatment of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims in East Turkestan colony.

THE TOTALITARIANISM of the 21st century is being pioneered in a vast but remote colony of western China inaccessible to most outsiders and subject to a media blackout by China’s Communist authorities.
In East Turkestan colony, twice the size of Germany, an estimated 1 million people have been forcibly confined to political reeducation camps, where they are required to memorize and recite political songs and slogans in exchange for food.
The rest of the region’s 23 million people are subjected to an extraordinary network of surveillance based in part on the collection of biometric data such as DNA and voice samples, and the use of artificial intelligence to identify, rate and track every person.
Those rated as suspicious — possession of certain phone apps is sufficient — are sent to the camps without process, trial or even a fixed term.
A new report by Human Rights Watch, which pieced together information about the repression based on interviews with 58 former East Turkestan residents, adds new details about what the group calls human rights violations “of a scope and scale not seen in China since the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.” 
Not only is the regime of Xi Jinping persecuting millions of people based on their ethnicity and religion, but also it is developing tools of high-tech repression that could be used by dictatorships around the world.
Yet China, says the report, “does not foresee a significant political cost to its abusive East Turkestan campaign.”
That must change.
The principal target of the crackdown, which began in 2014 but accelerated two years ago, are the some 11 million ethnic Uighurs in East Turkestan, who are predominantly Muslim, along with several other smaller Muslim ethnic groups.
Some Uighur individuals have supported separatist groups, and there have been a handful of violent attacks on Chinese targets.
But nothing could justify Beijing’s response, which Human Rights Watch concluded aims at the eradication of “any non-Han Chinese sense of identity.”
Inside the camps, detainees are forced to learn Mandarin Chinese: 1,000 or more characters must be memorized, along with patriotic songs and lists of rules that apply to Uighurs and other Muslims. 
These include not using Islamic greetings, not speaking Uighur in public, and not communicating with residents of 26 selected countries, including Russia, Turkey and Malaysia.
As disturbing, in part because it is so innovative, is the system of control outside the camps.
What authorities call the “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” aggregates data about people and “detects deviations from what authorities deem ‘normal,’ ” the report says.
The program generates lists of subjects for police to round up and question; many are then sent to the camps.
This Orwellian model of repression is likely to become the norm in China, and to be exported to like-minded totalitarian regimes elsewhere, unless the Xi regime encounters significant resistance. 
There are steps the United States and other democratic governments can take: Human Rights Watch recommends sanctioning those in charge of the East Turkestan campaign and restricting exports of equipment that could be used in it. 
At stake is not just the welfare of the Uighurs but also whether the technologies of the 21st century will be employed to smother human freedom.

China vs. Islam

Muslim minority in China face forced political indoctrination

Reuters

Police officers check the identity cards of a people as security forces keep watch in a street in Kashgar, East Turkestan, China, March 24, 2017.

BEIJING -- The Turkic mostly Muslim Uighur minority in China’s East Turkestan colony face arbitrary detentions, daily restrictions on religious practice and “forced political indoctrination” in a mass security crackdown, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.
The United Nations human rights panel said in August that China is holding up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs in a secretive system of “internment camps” in East Turkestan, where they undergo political education.
Beijing has denied that such camps are for “political education” and says they are instead vocational training centers, part of government initiatives to bolster economic growth and social mobility in the region.
China has said that East Turkestan faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between Uighurs who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese.
Uighurs and other Muslims held in the camps are forbidden from using Islamic greetings, must learn Mandarin Chinese and sing propaganda songs, according to a report by Human Rights Watch based on interviews with five former camp detainees.
People in East Turkestan with relatives living abroad in one of 26 “sensitive countries”, including Kazakhstan, Turkey and Indonesia, have been targeted by the authorities and are often held for several months, without any formal procedure.
Punishments for refusing to follow instructions in the camp could mean being denied food, being forced to stand for 24 hours or even solitary confinement, it said.
China foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang declined to give a detailed response to the report and said that Human Rights Watch was a group “full of prejudice” against China that distorts facts.
Security conditions in East Turkestan outside the camps had also intensified markedly and now bear “a striking resemblance to those inside”, Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said, based on interviews with 58 former East Turkestan residents now living abroad.
Wang and her team only spoke with people who had left East Turkestan due to a lack of access to the region and to avoid endangering those still living there.
New security measures described by interviewees include proliferating checkpoints that make use of facial recognition technology and sophisticated police monitoring systems, such as each house having a QR code that, when scanned, shows the authorities who the approved occupants are.
Monitoring of Islamic religious practices, such as asking people how often they pray and the closure of mosques, as well as regular visits by party officials to rural parts of East Turkestan, mean that practicing Islam “has effectively been outlawed,” Wang said.

China detains relatives of U.S. reporters in punishment for East Turkestan coverage

By Simon Denyer

A policeman is seen through a car window at a security checkpoint at Khom village of Altay, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, on Jan. 28. 

BEIJING — China’s security services have detained several close relatives of four U.S.-based reporters working for Radio Free Asia, in an attempt to intimidate or punish them for their coverage of the Muslim-majority East Turkestan region, the news organization said Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of Muslim ethnic Uighurs have been detained in “political education centers” by Chinese authorities in East Turkestan in recent months, according to Human Rights Watch. 

The campaign is portrayed as a “strike hard” campaign against "terrorists and separatists", but effectively means anyone who expresses their religious or cultural identity is targeted, Human Rights Watch said.
“We’re very concerned about the well-being and safety of our journalists’ family members, especially those in need of medical treatment,” said Rohit Mahajan, director of public affairs at Radio Free Asia in Washington.
“We’re also particularly concerned about the use of detentions as a tactic by Chinese authorities to silence and intimidate independent media, as well as to inhibit RFA’s mission of bringing free press to closed societies.”
Among those who have been detained or disappeared are several close relatives of Shohret Hoshur, Gulchehra Hoja, Mamatjan Juma and Kurban Niyaz, four ethnic Uighur journalists working for Radio Free Asia in Washington. 

The first three are U.S. citizens while Niyaz is a green-card holder.
Their reporting for the U.S. government-funded news organization has offered one of the only independent sources of information about the crackdown in the province.
All three of Hoshur’s brothers were jailed in East Turkestan in 2014, but two were released in December of the following year after protests from the U.S. government. 

The third, Tudaxun, was sentenced to a five-year jail term in 2015 for endangering state security and remains in prison.
Now, Hoshur said, the other two brothers were detained again in September and taken to the “Loving Kindness School,” a political re-education center in the city of Horgos. 

Hoshur said a source told him that around 3,000 people have been detained there.
Hoshur said Chinese authorities have contacted family members living in East Turkestan, urging them to ask him to stop calling and reporting on events in the region.
In a separate statement posted online last week, Hoja said her brother, 43-year-old Kaisar Keyum, was taken away by police in October and his whereabouts are unknown. 

Since late January, she has also lost all contact with her parents, who are both in their seventies and suffer from poor health.
“My father is paralyzed on one side and needs a constant care. My mother has recently had a surgery on her feet and is very weak,” she said in the statement. 

“I need to know where they are and that they are OK. I need to be able to speak to them. They have not committed any crime.”
Shortly after calling her aunt earlier this month, Hoja said she received a call from a friend in West Virginia whose mother lives in Urumqi, East Turkestan’s capital. 

Her friend said that around 20 of Hoja’s relatives had been arrested by the Chinese police because of her reporting.
When her brother was detained, police told Hoja’s mother that her employment with RFA was the reason for his detention, while Hoja has heard that her relatives may have been detained for being in communication with her through a WeChat messaging group, RFA said.
Juma, deputy director of RFA’s Uyghur Service, reported that his brothers Ahmetjan Juma and Abduqadir Juma were detained in May 2017. 

Ahmetan’s whereabouts are unknown, while Abduqadir has been taken to a prison in Urumqi. 

He suffers from heart and health issues that require medical care, but his sister has been denied access to him.
“The family is deeply concerned about his health and well-being while being held in a prison known for its inhumane conditions,” RFA said.
RFA Uyghur broadcaster Niyaz’s youngest brother Hasanjan was arrested last May and soon afterward sentenced to six years in jail for “holding ethnic hatred.”
Human rights groups say China represses the rights, culture and freedom of worship for Uighur Muslims. 

East Turkestan has been home to long-running separatist unrest, and there have been several violent attacks there in recent years, blamed by the authorities on Islamist extremism.
In a report issued Tuesday, Human Rights Watch described how a system of predictive policing, involving constant mass surveillance and big data analysis, was being deployed to bolster the crackdown in East Turkestan.
The policing program called “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” gathers data from all-pervasive security cameras, some of which have facial recognition or infrared capabilities, “WiFi sniffers” monitoring smartphones and computers, and car license plate and identity card numbers gathered at the region’s countless security checkpoints, all cross-checked against health, banking and legal records, the report said.
Police officers, Communist Party cadres and government workers also visit homes to gather data on families, their “ideological situation” and their relationships with neighbors. 

One interviewee said even owning a large number of books could arouse suspicion, unless one worked as a teacher, while data is also gathered on frequency of prayer and visits abroad.
Constant surveillance and harassment have made it extremely difficult for foreign reporters based in China to cover the crackdown in East Turkestan effectively, with locals too scared to talk to reporters and security officials obstructing or detaining several journalists who have ventured there. 

That has made RFA’s coverage even more important in understanding the situation there.
RFA said it had been in contact with the State Department over the detentions, but China’s foreign ministry declined to say whether it had received any communications from the U.S. government.
RFA was set up by Congress in 1994 to broadcast news that would otherwise not be reported in Asian countries where governments do not allow a free press and it continues to be funded by an annual grant from the U.S. government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Hoshur said China might be using voice recognition technology to intercept his phone calls to gather information from East Turkestan, with almost all of them cut off in under a minute.

China Is Using Big Data to Repress its Muslim Uighur Population

By GERRY SHIH 

BEIJING — Human Rights Watch says it has found new evidence that authorities in one of China’s most repressive regions are sweeping up citizens’ personal information in a stark example of how big-data technology can be used to police a population — and abused.
The rights group used publicly available government procurement documents, media reports and interviews to assemble details of the policing program called the “Integrated Joint Operations Platform” in East Turkestan, a sprawling area in northwest China that security officials say harbors separatist and religious extremist elements.
Unidentified sources inside East Turkestan described to Human Rights Watch the computer and mobile app interfaces of the IJOP software that tracks almost all citizens of the Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighur ethnic minority and stores detailed information including their travel history, prayer habits, the number of books in their possession, banking and health records.
Procurement notices show that the IJOP also deploys license plate tracking and facial-recognition cameras to follow people in real time and provide “predictive warnings” about impending crime, Human Rights Watch said.
Although surveillance is pervasive in many countries, including the United States, and has the potential for abuse, the technology is being deployed far more broadly in East Turkestan, said Maya Wang, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch and the report’s author.
“In China the programs are very explicitly focused on people who are politically threatening or an entire Uighur ethnic group,” Wang said.

Police patrol in a night market near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a day before the Eid al-Fitr holiday on June 25, 2017. 

An official in the press office of Xinjiang police headquarters on Monday confirmed AP’s questions had been received but said leaders were out and he had no idea when or if there would be a reply. 

The official, like many Chinese bureaucrats, declined to give his name because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.
China’s 10 million Uighurs already face a raft of restrictions not imposed on people of the Han ethnicity, who are the overwhelming majority in China. 

Uighurs face multiple hurdles in procuring passports and those who have them are required to leave them with the police. 

Hotels are required to register their presence with the local authorities and frequently turn them away to avoid the hassle. 

Frequent road blocks and checkpoints across the vast East Turkestan region enable authorities to stop people and check their mobile phones for content that might be deemed suspicious.
Such pressure was ratcheted up following a series of deadly attacks blamed on Uighur extremists seeking independence from Chinese rule.
A 2017 investigation by The Associated Press showed that thousands of Uighurs in East Turkestan, and possibly many more, have been sent to an extrajudicial network of political indoctrination centers for months at a time for reasons including studying abroad and communicating with relatives abroad.
The AP also found evidence in government documents and procurement contracts of the Xinjiang government compiling biometric and personal data and systematically rating its Uighur citizens’ political reliability.
The Human Rights Watch report reveals for the first time that the disparate data collection efforts appear to be unified under one central digital database that calculates citizens’ political risk.
Use of the integrated computer system has led to people being detained and sent to political indoctrination centers, Wang said, citing interviewees who were kept anonymous out of concern for their safety.
Wang said she has found evidence that Chinese police are building similar big-data tracking capabilities in other parts of the country under a program called the “police cloud,” but do not deploy them to as such an extent as in Xinjiang.

France Should Spotlight China's Rights Crisis

Foreign Minister Le Drian Should Call for Releases, Announce Policy Review
Human Rights Watch

French President Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping attend a bilateral meeting in Hamburg, Germany, July 8, 2017. 

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian should publicly urge respect for human rights in meetings with China’s new leadership, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the foreign minister. 

Le Drian is visiting China for the first time as foreign minister from November 24 to 27, 2017.
“French President Emmanuel Macron has explicitly committed to promoting human rights in China along with diplomatic and economic concerns,” said Bénédicte Jeannerod, France director. “Minister Le Drian’s visit is an important opportunity to publicly challenge the Chinese leadership over its rampant human rights violations.”
Human Rights Watch urged Le Drian to:

• Publicly call for the releases of political prisoners Liu Xia, Gao Zhisheng, Jiang Tianyong, and Wang Quanzhang;
• Express concerns about China’s increasing efforts to undermine international institutions that should help defend human rights, including the United Nations, Interpol, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB); and
• Announce a review of all bilateral law enforcement cooperation.

“France has long been a defender of fundamental rights and liberties worldwide,” Jeannerod said. 

“In the face of an unreceptive Chinese leadership, Minister Le Drian’s visit will be a test of France’s commitment.”

Gestapol

China hosts Interpol meeting amid concerns Beijing is using the police network to pursue political foes overseas.
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN

Interpol opened its main international annual meeting in China on Tuesday amid concerns that Beijing is using its growing influence over the police network to pursue political foes overseas.
Xi Jinping said in a speech to the Interpol General Assembly that China wants to work with other countries and organizations to achieve "global security governance."
However, New York-based Human Rights Watch said Interpol needs to address China's misuse of the organization's "red notice" system to seek the arrest and extradition of wanted people.
The election of Chinese Vice Public Security Minister Meng Hongwei as Interpol's president last year alarmed rights advocates who cite abuses, opacity and political manipulation within China's legal system.
China has used red notices to flag cases bearing a decided political taint, making the individuals involved vulnerable to law enforcement action by foreign government bodies.
Human Rights Watch raised the case of Dolkun Isa, an activist in Germany for the Turkic-Muslim Uighur ethnic group native to China's far-western Xinjiang region. 

It said Isa has had trouble traveling internationally since a red notice was issued against him more than a decade ago. 

China routinely accuses overseas Uighur advocates of supporting terrorism while providing little evidence to back up their claims.
The group also mentioned U.S.-based activist Wang Zaigang, whom it said appeared to have been targeted with a red notice in response to his activities promoting Chinese democracy.
Those served with red notices risk torture and other forms of ill-treatment given China's record of abuse, Human Rights Watch said.
"Interpol claims to operate according to international human rights standards, but China has already shown a willingness to manipulate the system," Sophie Richardson, the group's China director, was quoted as saying in a news release. 

"And with China's vice-minister of public security ... as president, Interpol's credibility is on the line," Richardson said.
The Ministry of Public Security is China's main police agency, charged with silencing and detaining critics of the ruling Communist Party, often outside the letter of the law.
Chinese politics expert Willy Lam said China has been using its economic heft to influence groups such as Interpol to further the party's foreign and domestic policy aims.
Lam pointed to cases where the line has blurred between accusations of corruption and apparent attempts to retaliate against those who make allegations against members of the communist leadership, such as outspoken businessman Guo Wengui.
Pressure on Guo has been building since April when a red notice was issued seeking his arrest on corruption-related charges. 

Chinese authorities sentenced several of his employees for fraud in June and have also opened an investigation into rape charges against Guo brought by a former assistant.
In recent months, Guo has become a widely followed social media presence by serving up sensational tales of corruption and scandal within the Communist Party's innermost sanctum, including among Xi's closest allies.
"China has turned Interpol into another venue for projecting its power," Lam said. 

"They've put a lot of investment into pursuing fugitives abroad, those wanted for political reasons."

Colonial Repression

Muslim Minorities Held for Months in Unlawful Facilities
Human Rights Watch

The Chinese government should immediately free people held in unlawful “political education” centers in Xinjiang and shut them down, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Since about April 2017, the authorities have forcibly detained thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities at these centers, where they are subjected to propaganda promoting Chinese identity.
“The Chinese authorities are holding people at these ‘political education’ centers not because they have committed any crimes, but because they deem them politically unreliable,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. 

“The government has provided no credible reasons for holding these people and should free them immediately.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed three relatives of detainees held in political education facilities around Kashgar City and Bortala Prefecture in 2017. 

They said the detentions began in the spring and lasted for several months. 

They said that people sent to the centers were not presented with a warrant, evidence of a crime, or any other documentation. 

They did not know which local authorities were responsible for detaining their family members or in some cases, even where they were held.
The family members said that men, women, and children were all being held. 

In one case, a family of four, including two children, were taken to a political education facility in western Xinjiang in April for traveling abroad for business and for the Hajj, an Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca. 

While one parent and one child were released after three months, the other two are believed to be still in custody.
State media in Xinjiang, including the Xinjiang Daily, have reported on these facilities. 

People interviewed and state media generally refer them as “counter extremism training centers” 去极端化培训班 and “education and transformation training centers” 教育转化培训中心. 

The facilities are converted from schools or other official buildings, though some are specifically built for the purpose. 

Media reports have noted that party cadres “eat, live and labor” alongside those “who need to be transformed,” and that life and hours there are “just like a boarding high school… except the content of learning is different.”
The family members interviewed said they believed their relatives were being detained for a number of reasons, including traveling abroad or having families who live abroad. 

Others may have been targeted for participating in unauthorized religious activities, such as wearing headscarves or other Muslim attire, or merely for having relatives who had been previously arrested by the government. 

State media reports also said that people who “are easily influenced by religious extremism” as well as “key personnel” – a term that refers to people perceived as threats by authorities – have also been detained in these facilities.
The family members also said that detainees are required to learn the Chinese language, and recite Chinese and Xinjiang laws and policies. 

They are compelled to watch pro-government propaganda videos, and to renounce their ethnic and religious identities, reciting slogans such as “religion is harmful,” and “learning Chinese is part of patriotism.”
It is not clear how many people are held in these facilities at any one time. 

An April 5 Xinjiang Daily article reported that over 2,000 people had been “trained” in a Hotan facility, though it does not give a time frame. 

This report features a Uyghur traditional medicine seller named Ali Husen, who was “sent” to this center by the township authorities. 

Though Husen was “initially very reluctant” to learn, he increasingly became “shocked by his ignorance.” 

After two months of education, Husen was asked to “clearly articulate his stance 发声亮剑” to a crowd of 5,000 and told them “how extremism had harmed him.”
Ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz have also been detained for having traveled abroad or having “spoken about Kazakhstan a lot.” 

Other reasons for their detentions are not known.
China’s closest equivalent to this form of detention for political indoctrination is the compulsory “re-education” of hundreds of Tibetans following their return from a religious gathering called the Kalachakra Initiation in India in December 2012, during the leadership of Communist Party secretary Chen Quanguo.
The Xinjiang political education detention centers are contrary to China’s constitution and violate international human rights law, Human Rights Watch said. 

Article 37 of China’s Constitution states that all arrests must be approved by either the procuratorate, the state prosecution, or the courts, yet neither agency appears to be involved with these detentions.
International human rights law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has signed but not ratified, prohibits arbitrary detention. 

Detention is arbitrary when it is not possible to invoke a legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty, or when the detaining authority fails to observe basic due process rights, such as to be informed of the reasons for arrest, to contest the detention before a judge, and to have access to lawyers and family members. 

While some Chinese laws – including the Counterterrorism Law, the Xinjiang Implementing Measures of that law, or the Xinjiang Counterextremism Regulations – envision authorities “educating” people about extremism, none of those laws allow authorities to deprive people of their liberty.
“Unjustly detaining and forcibly indoctrinating people will only increase resentment toward the government, not engender loyalty,” Richardson said. 

“China should instead allow greater freedoms so people in Xinjiang can express their criticisms and ethnic and religious identities peacefully and without fear.”

Government Repression of Uyghurs
Xinjiang, in northwestern China, is home to 10 million Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities. 

The Chinese government has imposed pervasive discrimination, repression, and restrictions on fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion. 

Opposition to central and local government policies has been expressed in peaceful protests, but also through bombings and other acts of violence.
The Chinese government has long conflated violent and nonviolent forms of political advocacy in Xinjiang. 

Authorities treat expressions of Uyghur identity, including language, culture, and religion, as well as aspirations for independence, as one of the “three [evil] forces” 三股势力, that is, “separatism, terrorism, and extremism.”
The Xinjiang authorities say many Uyghurs have “problematic ideas,” including Uyghur nationalism, extreme religious dogmas, and pan-Islamic and pan-Turkic identities. 

These are to be addressed by targeting their thoughts. 

Authorities say that these ideas, which they believe spread from Central Asia and the Middle East to Xinjiang, are incompatible with the Chinese government’s views about a united Chinese national identity.
Since Party Secretary Chen Quanguo moved from Tibet to lead Xinjiang in August 2016, the Xinjiang regional government has enacted policies that restrict foreign ties. 

It has recalled passports from Xinjiang residents since October 2016, which restricts foreign travel for these residents and gives police wide power to scrutinize residents’ proposed visits abroad. 

It has ordered Uyghur students studying abroad, including in Egypt, to return to Xinjiang, and made Egyptian authorities round up students who failed to return in July 2017.
There have also been reports of people being sentenced to prison for more than 10 years for studying or traveling abroad. 

Chen has also stepped up surveillance of residents, already under heightened security measures and an ongoing “strike hard” campaign, by employing the latest technologies, as well as hiring thousands more security personnel.

Rogue Nation

China’s Rights Crackdown Is Called ‘Most Severe’ Since Tiananmen Square
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

Pro-democracy activists held portraits of the detained Chinese human rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong, background left, and Wang Quanzhang at a protest in Hong Kong this summer.

GENEVA — China is systematically undermining international human rights groups in a bid to silence critics of its crackdown on such rights at home, a watchdog organization said on Tuesday. 

The group also faulted the United Nations for failing to prevent the effort, and being complicit in it.
“China’s crackdown on human rights activists is the most severe since the Tiananmen Square democracy movement 25 years ago,” Kenneth Roth, the director of the agency, Human Rights Watch, said in Geneva on Tuesday at the introduction of a report that he described as an international “wake-up call.” 

“What’s less appreciated is the lengths to which China goes to prevent criticism of that record of oppression by people outside China, particularly those at the United Nations.”
“The stakes are not simply human rights for the one-sixth of the world’s population who live in China,” Mr. Roth added, “but also the survival and effectiveness of the U.N. human rights system for everyone around the globe.”
The report highlights China’s measures to prevent activists from leaving the country to attend meetings at the United Nations, its harassment of those who do manage to attend and the risk of reprisals when they return or if they interact with United Nations investigators inside or outside China.
The report also noted barriers placed by Chinese officials to visits by United Nations human rights officials. 
Beijing has not allowed a visit by the agency’s High Commissioner for human rights since 2005, and continues to delay 15 requests for visits by special rapporteurs working on political and civil rights issues.

China allowed visits by four rapporteurs since 2005 on issues like poverty, debt and the status of women. 

But it carefully choreographed those visits, and contacts not sanctioned by the state posed risks to those involved. 

The United Nations has expressed concern that the detention of Jiang Tianyong, a prominent human rights lawyer, resulted from a 2016 meeting in Beijing with the United Nations special rapporteur on poverty, Philip Alston.
Mr. Jiang disappeared for several months and was later charged with subversion.
The report also documents China’s diplomacy in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, where China aligns with an informal collection of states, including Algeria, Cuba, Egypt and Venezuela, that discretely coordinate their positions to deflect scrutiny of their records and consistently challenge the council’s ability to look into accusations of abuse in other states without their consent.
“It’s becoming a mutual defense society among odious dictators in which everybody understands the need to deflect criticism of you today because they may criticize us tomorrow,” Mr. Roth said.
“And China is an active, willing partner in that effort.”
Moreover, China has withheld information requested by United Nations bodies that monitor issues like torture, treatment of the disabled and children’s rights, and has tried to stop the filming and online posting of their proceedings, Human Rights Watch said.
The report also accused China of using its position on a United Nations committee that accredits nongovernment organizations to obstruct applications by civil society groups.
Individual measures by China could be passed over as unremarkable, Mr. Roth said, “but when you put it all together, what it represents is a frontal assault on the U.N. human rights system.”
Human Rights Watch delivered a copy of its report to China but received no substantive response, he said.
The effect of China’s behavior on human rights is like “death by a thousand cuts,” Mr. Roth said, but he also pointed to the dangers of “a thousand acts of acquiescence” by the United Nations and states that support human rights.
Human Rights Watch presented a copy of its report to the United Nations secretary general, Antonio Guterres, Mr. Roth said, but Mr. Guterres’s response did not mention China by name.
“That illustrates what needs to change,” Mr. Roth said.
A request for comment from Mr. Guterres’s office was not immediately returned.
The report cited the United Nations’ treatment of the Uighur rights activist Dolkun Isa, who had received United Nations accreditation to attend meetings in its New York headquarters but was escorted off the premises by security officers without explanation.
It also cited the exceptional treatment that the United Nations accorded Chinese dictator Xi Jinping when he visited its Geneva headquarters in January: It sent home many staff members early, refused access to nongovernment organizations and granted access to only a handful of journalists.
Its handling of the occasion “was an utter embarrassment for the U.N.,” Mr. Roth said.
“It became actively complicit in Xi Jinping’s terror of any criticism. It was an utter abandonment of the principles the U.N. should abide by. It was a shameful moment.”

China: EU Summit Should Make Rights A Priority

EU Needs to Deploy ‘Full Weight’ to Ease Crackdown
www.hrw.org

From left, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Chinese President Xi Jinping and European Council President Donald Tusk pose for photos before a meeting held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, on July 12, 2016.

European Union leaders should publicly and privately press China’s government to end its crackdown on human rights and immediately release all detained activists, Human Rights Watch said today in a joint letter with a dozen other nongovernmental organizations. 

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Council President Donald Tusk, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini will attend the EU-China Summit in Brussels with senior Chinese officials on June 1-2, 2017.
“The EU has pledged to ‘throw its full weight behind advocates of liberty, democracy and human rights’ and do so at the ‘highest level,’” said Lotte Leicht, EU director at Human Rights Watch. 

“EU leaders need to make good on their pledges and make human rights and the freeing of peaceful activists a top strategic priority in the EU’s relationship with China.”
The organizations noted that on various occasions, the EU has publicly decried the deteriorating human rights situation in China, expressed support for independent civil society, and urged the release of imprisoned activists. 

Yet the EU and its member states have generally failed to move beyond rhetorical approaches and used their collective leverage to forcefully press Chin – an EU strategic partner and second largest trading partner – to end its increasingly brutal crackdown on those who peacefully dissent government policies, journalists who write on sensitive issues, and lawyers who defend activists in court.
The organizations urged EU leaders to take several steps, including suspending the bilateral human rights dialogue until a meaningful exchange with the Chinese government can be established, ensuring that human rights concerns are discussed in all other EU-China meetings, and explaining steps the EU and its member states will take if China does not act to end abuses and release jailed activists.
The EU-China Summit will be held three days ahead of the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. 

The EU retains an arms embargo against China because of these mass killings and EU leaders should stress the need for a thorough, transparent investigation into the massacre, accountability for the crimes, and adequate compensation for victims and their families.
In addition to Human Rights Watch, the letter was signed by Amnesty International, China Labour Bulletin, DEMAS, FIDH, Initiatives for China, the International Campaign for Tibet, the International Service for Human Rights, Freedom House, Human Rights in China, Human Rights Without Frontiers, World Organisation Against Torture, Reporters Without Borders, the Society for Threatened Peoples, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, and the World Uyghur Congress.
“The EU has acknowledged that improving human rights in China is essential for the overall EU-China relationship,” Leicht said. 

 “It’s not clear whether EU leaders have the foresight and courage to push for real change with China’s leaders. A failure to do so would suggest that EU human rights pledges are window dressing aimed to make Europeans feel good about themselves – rather than a principled and consistent policy.”

China torturing suspects in political purge against members of rival factions

Opaque extralegal detention system used by officials to hold suspects indefinitely until they confess
By Benjamin Haas in Hong Kong

Regular beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions and solitary confinement are among the tools used by China’s anti-corruption watchdog to force confessions, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
The report throws the spotlight on to Xi Jinping’s "war on corruption", which has punished more than a million Communist party officials since 2013. 

Xi has said fighting corruption is “a matter of life and death” but experts characterise the campaign as a political purge against members of rival factions.
The opaque extralegal detention system is used by "anti-corruption" officials to hold suspects indefinitely until they confess. 

At least 11 have died while in the custody of the country’s widely feared Commission for Discipline Inspection.
“Xi has built his 'anti-corruption campaign' on an abusive and illegal detention system,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
“Torturing suspects to confess won’t bring an end to corruption but will end any confidence in China’s judicial system.”
All of China’s 88 million Communist party members can be subject to detention or shuanggui, which in Chinese means to report at a designated time and place, where suspects are held incommunicado and often in padded, windowless rooms.
“If you sit, you have to sit for 12 hours straight; if you stand, then you have to stand for 12 hours as well. My legs became swollen and my buttocks were raw and started oozing pus,” a former detainee is quoted as saying in the report. 

Names were withheld for fear of government reprisals.
Others have described detention simply as a “living hell”. 

It is extremely rare for those who have been through the system to speak openly.
In one account a detainee was kept awake for 23 hours a day, forced to stand the entire time and balance a book on his head, one lawyer said. 

After eight days he confessed “to whatever they said” and was then allowed to sleep for two hours a day.
While Xi champions his "anti-corruption" drive, he has also advocated enhancing China’s “rule of law”, but activists say the two concepts are completely at odds when suspects are tortured and forced to confess.
Although the "anti-corruption" campaign is technically separate from China’s judicial system, Human Rights Watch documented cases where prosecutors worked alongside corruption investigators, using the shuanggui system to gather evidence. 

After the extralegal detention, cases are usually transferred to the courts, where there is a 99.92% conviction rate.

“In shuanggui corruption cases the courts function as rubber stamps, lending credibility to an utterly illegal Communist party process,” Richardson said. 

“Shuanggui not only further undermines China’s judiciary – it makes a mockery of it.”
Those sentiments have been echoed by western governments as Xi has ramped up his "anti-corruption" push and use of the system has skyrocketed.
Shuanggui “operates without legal oversight” and suspects are “in some cases tortured”, the US State Department wrote in its annual human rights report on China. 

Some confessions extracted in detention were eventually overturned by courts, the US government report said.
Government officials are the majority of suspects disappeared into the system, but bankers, university administrators, entertainment industry figures and any other Communist party member can be detained.
Human Rights Watch called for shuanggui to be abolished, adding that successfully fighting corruption required “robust protections for the rights of suspects”.
“Eradicating corruption won’t be possible so long as the shuanggui system exists,” Richardson said. “Every day this system threatens the lives of party members and underscores the abuses inherent in Xi’s anti-corruption campaign.”