She spotted her daughter in the back of the video where she believes is at a state-run orphanage. ''If they use too much electricity,'' Wang continues, ''or enter the house through the back door and not the front door, if they donate too much money to the mosque, these kinds of irregularities, as defined by the engineers in the system, alerts the government officials to interrogate the Turkick Muslims involved, vet them, and some go to political re-education camps.”. It is primarily conducted through the government, although non-publicized corporate surveillance in connection with the Chinese government has been speculated to occur. Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of Northwestern China are living in a police state like no other on earth. When people are abducted, there are a lot of kids orphaned. Would you like to receive event invitations, news, and updates from the International Documentary Association? The second-largest province in China, called Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, is no stranger to such surveillance systems. She has not seen her children or heard from them in three years. 80% Upvoted. PHOTOS: Inside the World’s Largest Humanitarian Relief Depot, How to Win the Nobel Peace Prize -- A Juror Explains, Better Know Nayib Bukele, the Hipster, Millennial and Authoritarian President of El Salvador, The Conflict in Israel and Palestine Takes A Dangerous Turn, The Chief Economist of the World Food Program Explains Why Global Hunger is On the Rise, Why We Need to “Decolonize” Global Health, Why the Battlefield Death of Chad President Idriss Deby Has Big Global Implications, PHOTOS: Inside the World's Largest Humanitarian Relief Depot, PHOTO ESSAY: Struggles, Hopes and Fears of Women in Nepal, One Year After the Earthquake, Here's What Happens When the World's Most Renowned Photographers Capture the Refugee Crisis, This Giant Mural in Oakland, California Commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations, This Amazingly Resiliant 13-Year-Old-Girl Escaped Violence in the Central African Republic, A UN Video to Remind the World That Civilians are #NotATarget, VIDEO: A BBC Journalist Snuck Into Yemen To Report on the Worst Humanitarian Crisis, WATCH: UN Secretary General Invokes Physics to Explain Why American Leadership is Necessary for World Order, WATCH: Rarely Seen Footage from the Conflict in the Central African Republic, VIDEO: There is more plastic in the sea, than stars in the galaxy. Every few meters you have a surveillance camera, voice recognition, facial recognition, and checkpoints to scan bodies and phones to ensure you don’t have anything content that would upset the communist party. Why the UN is Warning About a New Swine Fever that Can Spread Through Food, PODCAST: There's New Evidence of China's Brutal Repression of its Uighur Population, PODCAST: What You Need to Know About China's Foreign Policy Changes Under Xi Jinping, Map of the Day: The Countries Where Pollution is Most Deadly, This Legendary International Relations Scholar Believes War Between China and the USA is More Likely than We Think, In One Speech, China Just Grabbed the Mantle of Global Climate Leadership From the USA, If Present Trends Continue, China May Become a Sustainable Development Success Story. Today, in Chinese … The sinister, surreal and absurd for journalists who want to report on what’s happening in China’s far western region of Xinjiang. Yi Chen is a journalist and graduate of Wellesley College. The documentary provides a visceral sense of the dystopian police state that Xinjiang has become for its Uighur population. The economy has collapsed. Nurjamal Atawula recounts living in Xinjiang and being forced to flee after communicating on the messaging app WeChat. So, the UN has estimated that a million Uighurs that have been placed across the region in these camps. It’s Not Just Syria. As a result, many documentary makers have gone undercover to gather information. Further, having visited any foreign countries is also seen as extremist so they can be abducted for that as well. Documentary/videoart about surveillance in China Installation artist Xu Bing pits this watching world – 10,000 hours of found footage from 28,000 cameras across China uploaded to the cloud – against simple melodrama, young love and fragility. Aziz Isa Elkun, a film director and research scholar at SOAS, University of London, has lost contact with his mother since 2017. This information is then used to justify the imprisonment of nearly 1 million Uyghur and other minority ethnic people in the region into ''re-education'' camps. How are the Han population affected by these ordinances and state policies? © 2021 International Documentary Association. FRONTLINE’s latest documentary, China Undercover, features firsthand accounts from people who were held in the camps, and investigates the Communist government’s use of surveillance … The documentary provides a visceral sense of the dystopian police state that Xinjiang has become for its Uighur population. So, she believes her children are being brought up there. We were able to track several locations, so we returned to Xinjiang to see some. China’s tech dominance is obvious in Central Asia, but it has not come without pushback. An aversion to encryption makes the country’s networks vulnerable. It began with that video. News outlets such as HBO VICE’s China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover in the Most Dystopian Place in the World used hidden cameras and posed as tourists to enter into the heavily policed Xinjiang region. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. level 1. But, it is also a hindrance because all Uighur’s are treated as security threats. Xinjiang is incredibly difficult to report on. ''The last time I was there was 2018, so already hundreds of thousands, millions were sent to camps, lots of people disappeared, and checkpoints were everywhere. She is also a Documentary Magazine Editorial Fellow. Nobody avoids it, but we were able to slip under the radar for a period of time. Facial recognition technology became part of the fabric of life in China in 2019. What do we know about these re-education centers? ''I’ve been going to this region for 10 years now as a researcher,'' says Darren Byler, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Asian Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder. ''Essentially the government is able to calibrate people’s ability to move around, based on how much loyalty they show the Chinese government through technological means. China's surveillance state: Explained (2019) youtu.be/GqXmHB... 2 comments. So we can access things using satellite imagery, we can use things such as night-light vision to see if these camps are really being closed or not, and we can get the internal police reports—40,000 of which I am working through right now, which show very specific details what's happening on the ground, the capacities of this system and what are its limits.”. According to a recent New York Times article, this data is often shared instantaneously with policing authorities. A special undercover report from China’s secretive Xinjiang region. Do we have any sense of the number of children separated from their parents? How are these measures used to oppress Uighur people? save. Despite the high risk of imprisonment, Uyghur people around the world are wielding documentaries to provide a window into their world. People are terrified to do, see, or even think something wrong. So, it is not totally abnormal that tourists would be travelling around. There is nothing like going to Xinjiang right now. ''I went to almost all western European countries and I talked to local Uyghur communities and encouraged them to speak up against what is happening to their relatives,'' says Harri. A lot of the Han people have said these policies are far reaching. Breaking It Down: The Documentary Interview, Documentary Working Groups: Behind the Scenes of Field Accountability and Possibility, Intersectionality in the Documentary Film Edit Room, Movements, Campaigns, & Political Power In Front Of & Behind the Camera, Reclaiming the Power of Public Media | Documentary Film for All, The Documentary Funding Ecosystem: Building Values-based Financial Strategies, Why Transitioning to Black Leadership Matters | Equitable Organizational Succession in Media Arts, according to China security and surveillance experts, communicating on the messaging app WeChat, China’s Vanishing Muslims: Undercover in the Most Dystopian Place in the World, Doc Stars of the Month: Aldo Lopez-Gavilan and Ilmar Gavilan, 'Los Hermanos', Essential Doc Reads: Week of May 10, 2021, Shared Interests: Double Exposure Bridges the Gap between Filmmakers and Journalists, Sundance and TIFF Press Inclusion Initiatives: Reflections from an Awardee. In China’s Xinjiang, surveillance is all pervasive. 1 year ago. Uighur’s living abroad can’t have any contact in Xinjiang. In order to pass through areas such as public subways, civilians must show on their phone whether they are green, yellow or red, and only then are they permitted to enter. ''In February I launched the #MeTooUyghur movement and all of a sudden, within 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs started to post about their relatives who had been missing, possibly sent to concentration camps or been sentenced to prisons,'' Halmurat recalls. I couldn’t really interview my friends—I couldn’t contact them; some of them were in camps, so it was impossible.”, Byler shared some of his methods for conducting research even in a state of heavy surveillance: ''You have to be very careful.... [however] all of this is online; it’s digital. Report Save. It also exposes one consequence of the mass roundups of Ughur men and women, which is the orphaning of children who Isobel Yeoung discovers are placed into their own kind of re-education centers, posing as kindergartens. China has been building what it calls "the world's biggest camera surveillance network". At the same time, social media, news and documentary coverage has an undeniable role in sharing this treatment around the world, a tool of civic media in a time of emergency. share. (Really! ''As an Uyghur I experienced from my childhood until when I left my homeland in 2000 frequent discrimination and witnessed brutal crackdowns on moderate dissenting voices,'' says Rahima Mahmut, UK Representative for World Uyghur Congress, who works as a translator for documentaries such as FRONTLINE’s China Undercover and BBC’s China: A New World Order documentary series. All Rights Reserved. Loaded with facial recognition … With "Chinese Delicacy" as its general theme, the main event will be a competition for marketing campaigns in California for the culinary documentary A Bite of China, produced by China Central Television (CCTV). 0. She left five of her children with her parents, thinking her or her husband would be back in a couple weeks. Serbia is vaccinating faster than the EU — with the help of China. Using counter-terrorism as a pre-text, Chinese authorities have rounded up over a million Uighur men and women, forcing them into what they call “re-education centers.”  Men and women are arrested, seemingly for minor offenses like growing a beard, or having foreign contacts, or sometimes for no reason at all. Technology has become a double-edged sword. A New UN Report Shows What Countries Are Most Affected by the Global Water Crisis, The United Nations Has a New Plan to Measure Nature Like Economic Asset. Many people are willing to be interviewed, particularly if they have left China, such as those living in neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. A (Slightly) More Polished Face Of China's Surveillance State Beijing/Shanghai, 2018. FRONTLINE investigates the Communist regime’s mass imprisonment of Muslims, and its use and testing of … Byler also stresses the importance of ethnographic data, which he gathered by interviewing those who had been released from the camps. The Chinese Food and Culture Festival is an activity in the @CHINA series, and will be held at CSU Long Beach. 29 Views Share Embed In News & Politics. There have been a handful of violent riots and attacks within the region in the past decade. Most people mistook me for a local, which was good because white people raise more alarm bells. But that is exactly what my guest today, Isobel Yeung, did. The fact that we had foreign passports affords us a degree of protection. One person said his business has collapsed. Xinjiang has become one of the most surveillanced states, with over 160,000 cameras installed in the city of Urumqi by 2016, according to China security and surveillance experts. Can you tell the story of the woman in Istanbul? How does the reporting in Xinjiang compare to past reporting? China’s new surveillance is based on an old idea: Only strong authority can bring order to a turbulent country. It is extremely rare for a journalist –let alone a western journalist — to access Xinjiang to report on human rights abuses on the ground. It's now exporting that technology abroad, thanks to some of the country's largest firms. Can you describe the ubiquity of security cameras and police officers? This development of a surveillance state means everyone outside of these facilities is in an open prison, fearing what will happen to them and their families. In China George Orwell´s classic 1984 seems happening now as a surveillance state is infiltrating daily life. It also exposes one consequence of the mass roundups of Ughur men and women, which is the orphaning of children who Isobel Yeoung discovers are placed into their own kind of re-education centers, posing as kindergartens. As the use of technology becomes increasingly intertwined with international concerns, the relationship between surveillance technology and civilian documentation presents a need to change in new ways as well. It is being used to target and imprison the Uyghur people in China. Skynet in China: Real-life 'Person of Interest' spying in real time AI married to CCTV surveillance in China uses facial recognition and GPS tracking to … No. A new report reveals the scope of China's mass surveillance program as data privacy concerns mount. China has built a huge surveillance state at home. By Ryan Grenoble. This won't be abused at all... /s. China monitors its citizens through Internet, camera as well as through other digital technologies. ''It is not against the law, even Chinese law, to search for your relatives who have disappeared. China Undercover is a Hardcash production for WGBH/FRONTLINE and ITV in association with Entertainment One. In recent years, the government has installed more than 20 million cameras across a country where a decade ago there weren't many. Mass surveillance in China is the network of monitoring systems used by the Chinese government to monitor Chinese citizens. Posing as a travel blogger, Isobel Yeung, surreptitiously filmed a documentary for Vice News that aired in June on HBO. So, we decided to sneak in as tourists and pose as travel bloggers. ''The Chinese government is probably spending millions, billions for their own propaganda,'' Elkun says. The leaked Chinese government documents, which the ICIJ have labelled "The China Cables", include a nine-page memo sent out in 2017 by Zhu Hailun, then deputy-secretary of … The Chinese justify this by saying they are increasing education. On this second visit, had security around you tightened? DW Documentary Serbia as China's favorite partner. China has long been a surveillance state, so the citizenry is accustomed to the government taking a determining role in personal affairs. Maya Wang, China Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch, notes the use of integrated, jointed operation platforms, where authorities use big data systems such as a combination of facial recognition systems and public CCTV cameras to receive information from multiple sensory systems across the region. Cellular monitoring and widespread surveillance have been used heavily in the region since 2016. We have spoken to many Uighurs whose children have been taken away from them and are being brought up in these institutions. She got one sign of her daughter’s existence via a WhatsApp video in a group chat that the Uighur diaspora have. You are often given access to these dog and pony shows with a curated tour, which the government wants to present. You tracked down some of these “kindergartens”. A Bite of China. Outside the prison walls there is also a mass experiment in population control: authorities use facial recognition technologies, spyware and other high tech means to instill fear in Uighurs. The Chinese Communist Party would say this is about national security and that they are preventing future terrorist attacks. Most days there were plain clothed police officers following us, listening to everything, and tracking us wherever we went. In our conversation she discuss how she gained access to the Xinjiang, the police state she encountered and how a pervasive sense of fear is being used to oppress a population of millions. Footage is constantly compromised and it is difficult to interview key players or capture this incarceration system to the full extent. There has never been an abuse of this scale since the Holocaust. View discussions in 1 other community. Mark Leon Goldberg is the executive editor of UN Dispatch. Surveillance systems are now being utilized in unprecedented methods around the world. Travel east and you will enter a much larger experiment in high-tech surveillance for population control. Many within China use fake or anonymous profiles to take part. VICE's Elle Reeve heads to China to investigate the rise of facial recognition technology — and what that means for all of us. 1 year ago. These short documentary clips show the world how little we know about the inner workings of this incarceration system. hide. This thread is archived . SPECIAL REPORT: Inside China's surveillance state 2. Like many in his community, Harri could not get in contact with his parents, only to discover they had been placed in a camp. In addition, uniformed policeman were looking at our phones and deleting any content they wanted. We noticed that no kids were really leaving. Civilians in certain Chinese cities such as Hangzhou are categorized by ''contagion risk'' determined by mobile data and surveillance techniques that track people’s locations and who they have been with. For instance, it is a law that all knives and sharp objects are chained to the wall to prevent any potential violent attacks. Isobel Yeung is on the line to discuss her reporting from Xinjiang, which is a feat of journalism. As a hotel owner, he had to hire extra security personnel, and further, everyone has been sent to these concentration camps so there is nobody to spend money. (CNN Business) The morning after Ian Lahiffe returned to Beijing, he found a surveillance camera being mounted on the wall outside his apartment door. After losing contact with his family, Halmurat Harri launched the #MeTooUyghur social media movement. What if a surveillance state becomes reality? Yes, we were followed from the moment we arrived, and arguably before. I have witnessed a lot of real danger, but I have never witnessed this palpable fear that I saw. However, we could see the number of kindergartens had increased by 2.6 times the previous amount in 2016 over just one year. I simply wanted to make a voice through making this film and publicizing it.”. During this unprecedented period of the coronavirus pandemic, people have had to lean more and more on the use of technology for daily interactions and responsibilities. So then the media started to pay attention.”. Other people see these measures as necessary. Welcome To The Surveillance State: China's AI Cameras See All. For many in China… What we know about conditions in those camps and life in Xinjiang has come largely from reports of human rights organizations. This is the strictest and most sophisticated surveillance state in the world. The surveillance in the region goes beyond the location and activity tracking that is being used in this pandemic, as government authorities heavily monitor messaging apps such as WeChat (equivalent to Facebook Messenger app) and online communication. In some places such as in China, the increasing use of personal devices and technology coincides with an increased surveillance of personal data. Uyghurs are discouraged to retain their ethnic identity in fear of separatism from the larger nation, and it is considered a threat to practice the group’s religion. China Apr … (function($) {window.fnames = new Array(); window.ftypes = new Array();fnames[0]='EMAIL';ftypes[0]='email';fnames[1]='FNAME';ftypes[1]='text';fnames[2]='LNAME';ftypes[2]='text';}(jQuery));var $mcj = jQuery.noConflict(true); A Growing Crisis Between China and Canada Has Big Global Implications, Contagious Bacon? Rachel Harris at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London notes that the government sources have identified 75 types of behavior such as praying, eating halal, and growing a beard that show ''religious extremism,'' which is used to justify sending people to re-education camps. Despite heavy and violent censorship, documentaries, both short and long, whistle-blow and highlight the lives at the stake. Uyghur people continue to share their story by utilizing social media to document their story. Its lens was pointing right at him. These measures are being used to eradicate a religion, culture, ethnicity, and really an entire population. Short video clips on platforms such as TikTok and WeChat are used to locate or mourn their family members. A drone video even was uploaded to social media, showing detainees transferred from trains blindfolded and shackled. Journalists have found that you are not able to report freely because you are either followed by government or undercover cops to ensure you do not speak to locals. China has turned the northwestern region of Xinjiang into a vast experiment in domestic surveillance. Even highly produced documentaries such as those on BBC and Frontline highlight how much of what is happening in Xinjiang is still unclear to the general public. we decided to sneak in as tourists and pose as travel bloggers. It is impossible to exaggerate the dystopian nature of what it is like there. They had security fences around them and they were all in run-down neighbourhoods. level 1. Uighur people say they have been placed in the camps for reading the Quran, studying Arabic, speaking the Uighur language, wearing a headscarf, and just insulting the Communist Party in any way they perceive. It is laughable that these extreme measures are taken against the entire Uighur population, yet they are. She was tracked and harassed by the police based on private messages. How did you go about of tracking down some of these institutions? ), For the first time, LGBT rights will be formally institutionalized into the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations, Inside a New Plan To Create a Global Value Chain For Women, It’s World Immunization Week — Amid a Massively Unequal COVID-19 Global Vaccine Rollout, Why This is A Very Big Week for Climate Diplomacy. Once she left, her husband was arrested immediately and could not join Atawula as he had planned. China’s vast western region of Xinjiang has for centuries been home to a large population of predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Uyghur. The locals nearby seemed to think it was common knowledge that the Uighur kids were kept there. Barnwell says China plans to establish a Xinjiang-style surveillance system across the country. The heavy monitoring of personal data, individual communications, and surveillance cameras are used to gather personal information about people, their behaviors, and even their families.
Riccardo Calafiori Quartiere, Great Union Day, Linwood Homes Review, Klaipeda Lithuania Currency, European Cup Winners 1967, Is Moldova In Eu, Flower And Garden Festival 2021 Menu Prices, Save Mart Clovis Hours, Park Ranger House, Who Did Ultimate Warrior Lose Wwe Title To,