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The China cables (Credit:ICIJ)

From the  International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – ICIJ

The extraordinary coercive power of China’s Ministry of State Security is Xinjiang province, where the Beijing government is seeking to control the Uighurs, a non-Chinese Muslim minority.

ICIJ obtained an operations manual:

A new leak of highly classified Chinese government documents reveals the operations manual for running the mass detention camps in Xinjiang and exposed the mechanics of the region’s system of mass surveillance.

One of the revelations in the documents: China has targeted users of an app  for Muslims called Zapya, developed by DewMobile Inc.. The app allows smartphone users to send videos, photos and other files directly from one smartphone to another without being connected to the web, making it popular in areas where internet service is poor or nonexistent.

since at least July 2016, Chinese authorities have been targeting users of the Zapya app, known in Chinese as Kuai Ya (fast tooth), as part of their crackdown against the Muslim Uighur population. Officials have closely monitored the app on some Uighurs’ phones and flagged its users for further investigation, according to leaked documents 

Source: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists – ICIJ