Uyghurs in Afghanistan fear Taliban buying Huawei surveillance tech

October 19, 2023 | The China Project | By Ruth Ingram

“Any further cooperation or economic ties between China and the Taliban regime will raise alarm bells for the community because of what has unfolded in the Uyghur homeland with Uyghurs being unjustly labeled as terrorists,” Julie Millsap, Government Relations Manager at the Uyghur Human Rights Project, told The China Project.

Millsap said that the Taliban’s adoption of Huawei technology is a slippery slope toward the kind of full surveillance practiced across the border in Xinjiang, where it is used to detain Uyghurs on a whim for the shade of their skin, the shape of their nose, the slant of their eyes. The tech’s Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) — a compulsory app on every smartphone in Xinjiang — enables the Chinese government to see every download, every illegal app, and every text and email, in effect, monitoring the entire contents of each smartphone in real time.

“Huawei’s movement into the region will likewise potentially make facilitation of repatriation, arrests, or other potential targeting of Uyghurs much easier,” Millsap said.

In mid-October 2023 Pakistan ordered around 20 Uyghur families without correct documentation to leave its borders before November 1, or risk deportation, including Uyghurs who have fled Afghanistan without the right papers. This scenario worries Millsap, who sees the writing on the wall for Uyghurs living in Afghanistan.

“As the Taliban becomes more and more economically beholden to China, the level of control that the Chinese authorities will be able to exercise extraterritorially and extrajudicially will no doubt begin to mirror what we have seen unfolding in other countries with similar investment ties,” Millsap said.

Read the full article: https://thechinaproject.com/2023/10/19/uyghurs-in-afghanistan-fear-taliban-buying-huawei-surveillance-tech/