Thread by @CharlesRollet1

BREAKING: Chinese police in Shanghai are building a surveillance system that alerts them every time a foreign journalist tries to visit Xinjiang ipvm.com/reports/shangh… via @ipvideo

Here's the PRC police tender found by @ipvideo which details this system. It automatically notifies police every time "foreign journalists living in China" buy flight or train tickets to #Xinjiang.
s.ipvm.com/uploads/embedd…

This is only one feature of a sweeping surveillance system. Another feature: notifying PRC police of every Uyghur coming to Shanghai

This system works by connecting directly to @alibaba_cloud's Shanghai police platform and sifting through data including:

• Basic information about foreigners (境外人员基本信息)
• Visa information about foreigners (境外人员签证信息)
• Railway booking information… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

Other categories tracked by the system include suspected sex workers, illegal immigrants, drug traffickers, fraudsters...

Effectively, PRC police are criminalizing independent reporting on #Xinjiang.

@StateDept told @james_t_quinn, who covered this in an excellent @NRO article, that the US is "deeply concerned with the increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of journalists in the PRC"
nationalreview.com/corner/total-s…

@RepGallagher said "The Chinese Communist Party’s surveillance and harassment of foreign journalists attempting to report on the ongoing Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang only draws attention to its mafia-like behavior and contempt for human rights" nationalreview.com/corner/total-s…

None of this would be possible without @alibaba_cloud powering Shanghai's police database. But Alibaba has studiously ignored requests for comment from @ipvideo @NRO... it's hoping this blows over. Hopefully that won't happen, especially with #WorldPressFreedomDay

"Alibaba has responsibility, and we urge the company to stop providing such services to the police" said @hrw's @wang_maya