Washington: There are very few countries around the world that are as infamous as China. China is notorious worldwide for its many kinds of brutalities. China left no stone unturned to make the life of Uyghur Muslims living there for many years, a hell. Now, taking a drastic step further, China has devised a new social media surveillance system to keep a tab on Uyghurs staying overseas.
As reported by CNN, Concerned about international opinion, the Chinese Communist Party has started to monitor social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and WeChat.
The report states that Nirola Elima, settled in Sweden, faced repressive actions by Chinese authorities. In September 2020, one of her relatives Mayila Yakufu was freed from a Chinese internment camp based in Yining Detention Center and she contacted Yakufu through a video call.
Elima mentioned, “Initially, I could not recognize her, because she looked very weak. She had short hair. She was very nervous and didn’t even have the courage to speak in front of me.”
Elima quickly passed on the news to Yakufu’s parents and sister who live in Australia. As per the officials, Yakufu’s apparent crime was transferring savings to her parents in Australia, to help them buy a house.
But her freedom was short-lived as a day after Chinese authorities took her away again, this time to Yining People’s Hospital in western Xinjiang.
According to CNN, the authorities didn’t give them a medical reason for her admission to the hospital, but they did pass a message to her aunt and uncle: stop your daughter, Nyrola, from tweeting.
As per the US State Department, since 2017, two million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other ethnic minorities could have passed through the camp system in 2017.
The extent of the mass surveillance apparatus by China has increased manifolds to monitor Uyghurs, who can be sent to the camp in the name of long beards or headscarves or owning a passport. To protect themselves from being humiliated in other countries, Chinese authorities are monitoring the social media platforms of Uygars living abroad.