Alhurra – Washington, May 13, 2025
Uyghurs in China
In East Turkistan, if a Uyghur does not stop in front of the facial recognition camera at a gas station, the fuel pump will not work.
If they want to enter a market, they are forced to pass through metal detectors, ID scanners, and facial recognition cameras before being allowed entry to shop.
China affairs expert Michael Sopolik told Alhurra: "To be Uyghur is to live in a constant nightmare."
In East Turkistan, home to the Muslim Uyghur minority in western China, surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, and security checkpoints lurk at every corner, questioning passersby: "Where is your personal mobile phone?"
According to international human rights organizations, Beijing has, for nearly a decade, installed one of the world's most extensive digital surveillance systems, turning 13 million Uyghurs into a living laboratory for AI-enhanced surveillance tools.
Even more dangerously, China's model of digital repression can be replicated anywhere in the world. A current lawsuit in Paris even indicates that this system has been deployed in several countries.
The Paris Court
In a Parisian courtroom, for several weeks, an unprecedented legal battle has been slowly brewing to hold Chinese technology companies accountable for crimes against humanity.
The lawsuit is led by renowned French human rights lawyer William Bourdon on behalf of the World Uyghur Congress. The defendants are the French subsidiaries of three Chinese tech giants: Huawei, Hikvision, and Dahua.
The charge: Complicity in genocide.
The lawsuit alleges that these giant corporations helped establish a total surveillance state in East Turkistan, as their facial recognition systems and artificial intelligence technologies not only surveil but are trained to target Uyghurs on an ethnic basis.
The World Uyghur Congress believes these systems are not merely surveillance tools but instruments of detention, torture, and control, feeding one of the world's most extensive digital repression networks.
This lawsuit is not limited to the use of digital repression within China's borders but also indicates these systems have been used in other conflict zones like Ukraine and in surveillance projects in Ecuador and Serbia.
Richard Weitz, director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, told Alhurra that these surveillance systems are widely supplied to foreign governments wishing to emulate the Chinese model.
"Several countries in Africa and Asia, perhaps some in Europe too, but they are primarily focused on Africa and Asia, maybe Latin America as well, are buying these systems from China."
"But the problem is," Weitz continued, "the Chinese appear to be collecting this data for themselves as well."
Predictive Policing Algorithm
For nearly a decade, the Uyghur people have lived under intense surveillance, arbitrary mass detentions, forced ideological re-education camps, and restrictions on movement, work, and religious activities.
After Beijing declared a "people's war on terror" in 2014, Chinese authorities vastly expanded the use of advanced technologies in Uyghur regions.
During the tenure of Chen Quanguo, the "hardline" Party Secretary in East Turkistan, Uyghur regions witnessed a surge in the construction of police stations, with no two stations more than 500 meters apart.
Security spending soared, and recruitment in the public security sector increased dramatically. Reports indicate that the number of police officers per capita in East Turkistan is 40 times higher than in the densely populated southern province of Guangdong.
Simultaneously, Beijing launched policing platforms operating with predictive algorithms. An app called the "Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP)" collects personal data from multiple sources—including surveillance cameras, Wi-Fi networks, personal phone tracking devices, bank records, and even health and travel records—to identify individuals deemed potential threats by authorities.
Human Rights Watch states that this "predictive policing" program has ordered the arbitrary detention of Uyghurs even when there is no sign of wrongdoing.
Merely wearing a hijab can trigger the algorithm to classify someone as a "security risk." Authorities frequently detain individuals targeted by this data system, sending them to re-education camps without charge or trial.
Sopolik from the Hudson Institute says: "If you are a Chinese citizen living in China, your life is ultimately managed through apps controlled by the Chinese government, or more specifically, the Chinese Communist Party."
"For example, take WeChat, known as the 'everything app'; whether ordering food, contacting family, using a search engine, or posting on social media, it's an all-pervasive app."
"It's also an app the Chinese Communist Party uses to track and monitor citizens' communications," he added.
Uyghur residents say Chinese authorities always view them with suspicion. Human Rights Watch quoted a Uyghur netizen on the endless security checks: "If you look like an ethnic minority, they check you. I feel humiliated."
Weitz believes that Uyghur rights are "being violated in many forms" and that the AI-powered surveillance system is "one of them."
East Turkistan – Last Ramadan
While the world is preoccupied with international issues other than the East Turkistan region, China continues its campaign of forced assimilation of Uyghurs.
During Ramadan, Chinese authorities forced Uyghurs to photograph themselves eating lunch and send these images to ruling party cadres, in an attempt to prevent what they call "religious extremism."
Last March, a local police officer told Radio Free Asia that many were forced to work during the day; those who refused were detained for 7 to 10 days or sent to "camps."
Moral Crisis
The issue of forced labor in prisons remains a major international moral crisis, while Washington continues its efforts to alleviate Uyghur suffering through legal measures targeting Chinese companies complicit in crimes against humanity.
Richard Weitz, director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute, describes the efforts of the US and other countries in this regard as "more successful" compared to Europe's role in countering China's abuses of Uyghur rights.
Weitz points out that the Trump administration and its successor, the Biden administration, encouraged European governments and others not to purchase Chinese technologies, especially those used to collect data on local companies or populations.
Earlier this May, the US House of Representatives passed the "No Dollars for Uyghur Forced Labor Act."
This law prohibits the US State Department and USAID from funding any programs involving goods produced in China's East Turkistan region or by entities linked to forced labor imposed on Uyghurs.
The bill requires contracting entities to provide written assurance that they will not use such products. It also mandates annual reports on enforcement violations and challenges, allowing for exceptions in special circumstances with prior notification to Congress.
This law strengthens US efforts to counter China's repression of Uyghurs through economic and diplomatic pressure.
Last January, the US Department of Homeland Security significantly expanded the "entity list" under the "Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act," targeting Chinese companies involved in forced labor in East Turkistan.
Between 2024 and 2025, companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada blacklisted numerous Chinese companies in sectors such as agriculture, solar panels, and textiles.
Furthermore, "according to Weitz, Washington has sometimes focused on developing counter-technologies to help Uyghurs and others bypass surveillance systems."
Sopolik asserts that the creation of a surveillance state within China dates back to the 1980s or 1990s and that this occurred "with the help of Western countries."
"But they succeeded in developing this 'dystopian technology' and using it against their own people, especially Uyghurs," he added.
Patent Rights
Beijing collaborates with private companies to develop AI systems that identify people based on ethnicity. According to Reuters, recently disclosed patents and documents show that Chinese tech companies have created algorithms to identify Uyghur faces within crowds.
The agency quoted a researcher warning of severe human rights violations: "These technologies allow police to view vast facial databases and identify faces that AI classifies as Uyghur."
Beijing has built a massive database of East Turkistan residents' biometric data. According to The Guardian, under the guise of free medical check-ups, residents, especially Muslim minorities, were forced to provide police with DNA samples, iris scans, fingerprints, and voice recordings.
This vast amount of personal biometric information, combined with AI camera networks and smartphone surveillance apps, has allowed China to build an Orwellian surveillance system. Even George Orwell himself might be horrified by a real dystopia inhabited by real human beings, not just fictional characters.
The surveillance system in East Turkistan is often described as a "digital police state" and is considered an experimental program that Beijing is testing on Uyghurs before expanding it elsewhere.
Like the characters in Orwell's "1984," an estimated 13 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkistan live in constant fear under a high-tech security net.
People know that almost every move is watched. Going to the mosque, the people you contact, what you read, even your style of dress is constantly evaluated by algorithms.
Many in East Turkistan avoid using phrases with religious or distinct cultural connotations. Contacting relatives abroad, owning a prayer mat, or sharing a Quranic verse on social media can land you in prison.
Uyghurs say they are "afraid to pray or even wear traditional clothes" in their homes because they know the state's eyes and ears are everywhere, and the consequences are severe.
Since 2017, Chinese authorities have carried out mass detentions in East Turkistan. According to Reuters, UN estimates suggest that over a million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are detained in a network of detention camps and prisons.
Many were sent to camps not for committing any crime, but because automated surveillance systems flagged them as "potentially disloyal" due to their digital footprint.
Inside the re-education camps, which Beijing calls "vocational training centers," former detainees describe being subjected to torture, political indoctrination, and forced renunciation of their religion.
Families have been torn apart: as adults disappear into secret camps, children are placed in state institutions where authorities attempt to erase Uyghur identity. Even those not detained live under a kind of provisional house arrest.
A Guardian report tells the story of a Uyghur who returned to East Turkistan from studying abroad: he was immediately labeled "dangerous" for leaving the country; police detained him at the airport, forced him to undergo a biometric "health check," and took him to a detention center.
Others were detained merely for having a relative abroad or for having Islamic content on their phones.
International human rights organizations state that pervasive surveillance fuels a broader system of abuses. In an August 2022 report, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that China's surveillance actions in East Turkistan "may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity."
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented evidence of mass detention, torture, cultural persecution, and forced labor in the region, "facilitated" by advanced surveillance infrastructure, making it impossible for Uyghurs to escape state control.
In short, East Turkistan has become an open-air prison where an entire nation is digitally besieged. The human cost is immense: the destruction of privacy, the criminalization of faith and culture, and the disruption or ruin of millions of lives.
Sophie Richardson from Human Rights Watch said: "China has built a surveillance-driven dystopia in East Turkistan, a model of repression the world must urgently confront." (Human Rights Watch, 2023).
Repression Technology Companies
Reports highlight Beijing's reliance on a host of Chinese security tech giants to supply the equipment and software powering the police state in East Turkistan.
Hikvision, Dahua, and Huawei are among the world's largest surveillance camera manufacturers.
Hikvision and Dahua have secured massive contracts to supply East Turkistan with surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems.
Research based on leaked police documents shows that Hikvision cameras are a key part of police programs in East Turkistan to track and target Uyghurs.
If You Are Uyghur
Sopolik says: "If you are a Uyghur living in China, it is impossible to live without being under the constant surveillance of the Chinese Communist Party."
"Even more tragically," he added, "if you are a Uyghur living outside China – in the United States, the UK, or other Western countries – the Party's repression still follows you."
