Thread by @dtbyler

Thread: This report analyzes 1000s of unredacted, detailed internal police files from Urumchi in 2018-2019. Part of a dataset maintained by a state contractor named Landasoft, built using Oracle software and obtained by @theintercept. theintercept.com/2021/01/29/chi…

https://twitter.com/dtbyler/status/1387498826315927552

Finding 1. Reports from the Mobile Police Network of the Urumchi Public Security Bureau from 2018-2019 skewed dramatically toward Muslims. More than 84% of reports focused on Muslim minorities. Only 16% focused exclusively on the Han population, which make up 71% of the city.

Finding 2: Surveillance infrastructure is used to captures Muslim social institutions. Dozens of reports indicate imams have been detained. While some mosques remains open, the number of people who entered one mosque to pray during the first 4 months of 2018 had dropped by 96.52%

...as compared to 2017 when 80,211 people attended the mosque to pray. There are 167 elderly attendees who remain.The so-called "success" in haulting Islamic activity stem from a number of factors: 1. Demolition of Uyghur homes
2. Consciousness raising of the “deextremification”

3. Real-name face-recognition checkpoint system at mosque entrance
4. Banishment of migrants from the city to southern Xinjiang
5. Drop in the “actual population” of the district due to detentions of former attendees

(Image at mosque entrance in Urumchi by @j_smithfinley )

6. Religious people are afraid to pray in the mosque because they “have been told that those who enter the mosque more than 200 times will be sent to ‘education’”—the widely used euphemism for the detention camp system. Other reports state, many sent to this camp in Dabancheng.

7. The police also reported that they discovered no instances of people conducting “illegal” prayers at home or in any other unauthorized place—another violation that can result in detention. Illegalized books have been siezed.

Finding 3: The system depends on human labor. Much of this system is implemented by Ministry of Civil Affairs workers in neighborhood watch units (社区), and police assistants (协警) acting as proxies for the state/and surveillance system. Around 90,000 new security personnel.

Finding 4: Political ideology is a key feature. Flag raising ceremonies & political education is an important component. Weekly flag raising. Watching movies such as Operation Red Sea, building counter-terrorism fervour.
variety.com/2018/film/asia…

Finding 5: State coercion implemented through nested systems of surveillance, monitoring of intelligence quotas, of deviance, or being "two faced" are mentioned over and over. Around 73% of Muslim adults assessed in a given week in one neighborhood.
thediplomat.com/2018/10/turn-i…

Implications: aspects of these system already widespread. But lack of checkpoints & mass police force means it will be difficult to implement in other spaces in China. Most systems are used for deterrence and political control rather than social transformation in other locations.

Data-intensive technology-led policing creates its own reality. It means ignoring all of the noise that doesn’t fit the parameters of the system. The criminalization of normative social behavior and social institutions of disfavored, illegalized populations is normalized.

The black box effect prevents critical thinking and establishes standard operating procedure. When combined with a reserve of data police, racialized ideology, and authoritarian statecraft it produces intimate forms of cruelty that transcend scale. END