China just laid out how it wants Google to help it persecute its Muslim minority

Chinese regional authorities recently laid out the kind of speech suppression that Google will likely have to facilitate for the country's persecuted Muslim ethnic minority to launch its new product in China.

Authorities in Xinjiang, a region in western China, on Tuesday, passed new local laws demonstrating how officials should root out banned speech to fight so-called religious extremists.

Around 11 million Uighurs, a mostly-Muslim ethnic minority, live in Xinjiang, and are subject to some of the most intrusive surveillance measures in the world, which include being monitored by 40,000 facial recognition cameras across the region, and having their DNA samples and blood types recorded.

Tuesday's laws made clear that authorities want tech companies to play their part in the surveillance, policing, and silencing of the Uighurs. Beijing justifies its crackdown in Xinjiang - also known to Uighurs as East Turkestan - as a counterterrorism measure, though it's denied UN inspectors access to the region.

Google could be complicit in this persecution if its secretive plans to launch a censored search engine - codenamed "Project Dragonfly" - become a reality.


https://amp.thisisinsider.com/china-likely-laid-out-how-google-can-help-persecute-uighur-minority-2018-10