\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/cdn.defenseone.com\/media\/img\/upload\/2018\/08\/16\/AP_17349289734703\/defense-large.jpg\")
China has reportedly begun deploying flocks of\u00a0<\/strong>drones\u00a0disguised as birds\u00a0to surveil its citizens. The drones have wings that flap so realistically they\u2019re difficult to distinguish from actual birds. In fact, animals on the ground often can\u2019t make the distinction, and even real birds in the sky sometimes fly alongside the drones. The robotic birds can mimic 90 percent of the movements of their biological counterparts, and they\u2019re also very quiet, which helps them avoid\u00a0detection.<\/p>\nThe operation\u2019s codename is \u201cDove\u201d\u2014but there\u2019s reason to doubt whether these machines come in peace. Yang Wenqing, a member of the team behind Dove, said the technology has \u201csome unique advantages to meet the demand for drones in the military and civilian sectors\u201d and \u201cgood potential for large-scale use in the\u00a0future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Headlines about technologies like these gaining traction in China have been appearing in the news with alarming frequency. Facial-recognition tech is now used for everything from\u00a0catching criminals in huge crowds\u00a0to\u00a0detecting and shaming jaywalkers\u00a0to\u00a0deciding whether someone can get an extra square of toilet paper\u00a0in a public bathroom. Some employees have to wear\u00a0helmets that scan their brainwaves\u00a0for rage, depression, anxiety, or fatigue, and that alert their bosses to any perceived problem. Then there\u2019s the country\u2019s\u00a0social credit system, which monitors millions of individuals\u2019 behavior (including via social media and online shopping), determines how moral or immoral it is, and raises or lowers their \u201ccitizen score\u201d accordingly. Those with a high score are\u00a0rewarded, while those with a low score are\u00a0punished.<\/p>\n
Even in a country known for its extreme spying on its entire population, the degree of surveillance targeting Muslims in particular is unnerving. An estimated 22 to 25 million Muslims live in China, out of a total population of 1.4 billion. Last year, a\u00a0Freedom House\u00a0study found that extensive surveillance affects many religious groups, with Muslims as well as Protestant Christians and Tibetan Buddhists experiencing an increase in persecution over the previous five years. In an interview this week, Timothy Grose, a China expert at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, told me, \u201cRight now, we see a lot of the repression being directed against\u00a0Muslims.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n\n
The Dove program\u2019s bird-like drones have been flown over five provinces so far, and it\u2019s perhaps no coincidence that they\u2019ve been used extensively in one area in particular: Xinjiang, a northwestern region heavily populated by Uighurs, a largely Muslim ethnic minority. The government has long considered the region a breeding ground for separatism and extremism. Ethnic riots there killed hundreds in 2009, and some Uighurs have perpetrated terror attacks in recent years. The area is now subject to a heightened level of surveillance, with authorities\u00a0collecting\u00a0DNA<\/span>\u00a0samples, fingerprints, iris scans, voice samples, and blood types from\u00a0residents.<\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019re applying a very, very broad attempted solution to what they see as an ideological danger. In Xinjiang, the definition of extremism has expanded so far as to incorporate virtually anything you do as a Muslim,\u201d James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University, told me. The amount of surveillance directed at that region\u2019s 11 million Uighurs, he added, is \u201ccertainly disproportionate\u201d relative to that directed at other groups. \u201cIslam is now effectively being demonized in\u00a0China.\u201d<\/p>\n
This month, 11,500 Chinese Muslims are heading to Mecca on the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Before leaving the country, some of the pilgrims were given state-issued tracking devices, in the form of\u00a0\u201csmart cards\u201d\u00a0attached to lanyards around their necks. The devices bear\u00a0GPS<\/span>\u00a0trackers and customized personal data. The state-run China Islamic Association says they\u2019re intended to ensure the pilgrims\u2019 safety. (There is legitimate reason for such concerns: During the 2015 Hajj, a\u00a0stampede\u00a0killed more than 750 pilgrims.) But some human-rights experts say this is one more effort to surveil Muslims. The government\u2019s fear, according to a Human Rights Watch\u00a0report, is that religious pilgrimages could act as \u201cpotential cover for subversive political\u00a0activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t use what comes out of human-rights organizations uncritically, but here\u2019s one case where I would definitely side with them,\u201d Grose said. \u201cThe pilgrims are always accompanied by an official guide, essentially a monitor, who represents the Chinese Islamic Association, which represents the state. Their movements are always under supervision. Their schedules are airtight, with very little room for any extracurricular activities. So the use of\u00a0GPS<\/span>\u00a0in an already tightly put-together schedule just seems too redundant [if it\u2019s about safety]. To me, it\u2019s about: \u2018Well, what if one of them sneaks away, and we need to find out where he is and if he\u2019s talking to someone and bringing back with him an interpretation of Islam that doesn\u2019t accord with [what the government] has been\u00a0promoting?\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n\n
Muslims are also experiencing larger human-rights violations in China. An estimated 1 million Uighurs are reportedly being held without trial in detention camps, where they\u2019re\u00a0forced\u00a0to memorize Communist Party propaganda, criticize their own previous religious behavior, and renounce Islam, including by eating pork and drinking alcohol. China issued a\u00a0denial\u00a0Monday after a United Nations human-rights panel\u00a0said\u00a0last Friday that it\u2019s seen many credible reports alleging that a million Uighurs are held in what resembles a \u201cmassive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.\u201d In July, the\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0State Department expressed deep concern about the\u00a0\u201cpossibly millions\u201d\u00a0of Muslims in the camps, and an earlier\u00a0U.S.<\/span>\u00a0commission\u00a0called it\u00a0\u201cthe largest mass incarceration of a minority population in the world\u00a0today.\u201d<\/p>\nAlthough China has been mostly targeting Uighurs, it\u2019s also detaining Muslim members of other ethnic groups like Kazakhs. If Uighurs and Kazakhs\u2014both Turkic peoples\u2014are taking the brunt of the maltreatment, it\u2019s likely because the Chinese authorities see them as a threat to the integrity of the country, with Uighur separatists aspiring to their own national homeland (they refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan) and Kazakhs maintaining foreign contacts across the border in\u00a0Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chinese government thinks that these Turkic Muslims have incorrect thoughts,\u201d Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote in an email, \u201cbecause they identify more with Turks and Muslims in Turkey and Central Asia. To correct these thoughts, and to make them loyal subjects of the Chinese Communist Party, it needs to reengineer their identities and to tightly control\u00a0them.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Grose said, \u201cThe Chinese Communist Party allows for and even celebrates most ethnic diversity. But when that\u2019s animated by religious nationalism, that\u2019s what the Party fears\u2014because those are forces that originate outside China, which they can\u2019t\u00a0control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chinese experiments in surveillance are having an impact elsewhere in the world: Some of the new tech the authorities seem to\u00a0try out\u00a0on Uighur Muslims is later applied more broadly in the country and then exported abroad. \u201cXinjiang provides a testing ground from which they can then try it in larger places,\u201d Grose said. Chinese firms have already sold their surveillance tech to countries like\u00a0Malaysia,\u00a0Pakistan, and\u00a0Zimbabwe, and may soon gain\u00a0a foothold in Europe,\u00a0too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n
Fuente:<\/strong>\u00a0https:\/\/www.defenseone.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China ha comenzado a desplegar bandadas de drones disfrazados de p\u00e1jaros para vigilar a sus ciudadanos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,29],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}