7 ms·
More context about this WikiPedia excerpt: → https://www.chinafile.com/extensive-surveillance-china https://www.chinafile.com/extensive-surveillance-china → h
by guessmyname 3y ago
More context about this WikiPedia excerpt:
→ https://www.chinafile.com/extensive-surveillance-china https://www.chinafile.com/extensive-surveillance-china
→ https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/student-01272020075256.html https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/student-01272020075256.ht...
It looks like 周月明 (Vera Yueming Zhou) was sent to a Chinese concentration camp mostly because she was part of a religious minority and not necessarily for using a VPN to access the University of Washington’s website.
> Vera was living in her hometown of Kuytun (Kuitun) in Ili Prefecture, an area directly north of the Tian Shan mountains that borders Kazakhstan. She had been trapped there since 2017, when—in the middle of her junior year at the University of Washington, where I was an instructor—she had taken a spur-of-the-moment trip back home to see her boyfriend, a former elementary school classmate. Using digital surveillance tools, the Kuytun police had noticed that Vera had used a Virtual Private Network in order to access websites such as her university Gmail account. Given her status as a member of a Muslim minority group, this could be deemed a “sign of religious extremism.”
- esaym 3y agoEncamped for your beliefs and not for breaking the law, that makes it much better!
- mannerheim 3y ago[flagged]
- KptMarchewa 3y agoWe can look at russia arresting random foreign nationals for bullshit reasons right now.
- jareklupinski 3y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/article/brittney-griner-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/article/brittney-griner-russia.html
- thalassophobia 3y agoShe did commit a crime by travelling to Russia with an illegal substance, for which she got roughly the same sentence as a typical Russian would get if caught with a similar amount of drugs. This case doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary, except for the "criminal" being a famous foreigner.
- mannerheim 3y agoUsing a VPN in China is also a crime.
- oyashirochama 3y agoThat the party ignores to access Twitter for propaganda and privileged people ignore for entertainment. The party isn't technically the government of China.
- 0xDEF 3y agoHalf of 20-year-olds in StP and Moscow would be in prison if that was true. Her arrest and imprisonment was entirely political.
- oyashirochama 3y agoThey also don't cross borders with such things, as a foreigner, I'm not defending it but it was stupid to do. Of course a foreigner is going to be possibly vetted more.
- vGPU 3y ago“Young tourist is now facing death by firing squad in Bali after cocaine was found in her luggage: Here are the Indonesian rules everyone needs to know” This is a headline from this year. It turns out that when you break the law in other countries, you might get punished for it. Who could have possibly expected that, right?
- pindab0ter 3y agoCan we not call that "cute"? That seems needlessly abrasive for people who are genuinely unaware.
- mannerheim 3y agoAnyone who believes themselves exempt from the laws of a country they travel to because of a little booklet they carry isn't just unaware, they are foolish, and dangerously so because they not only endanger themselves, but everyone else they convince to adopt this attitude. Better they receive the scorn they deserve now than for them or anybody else to face the same consequences Griner or Warmbier faced.
- throw10920 3y agoI agree. I flagged that comment, because I strongly believe that it's not suitable for HN, and I encourage you to do the same.
- kjs3 3y agoThat's the thing about "illegal but everyone does it"...it's nothing to worry about until the government decides it's convenient to enforce (against an individual or group), and then it's definitely something to worry about and it becomes a low barrier pretext for all sorts of oppression.
- sowbug 3y agoRemember this next time you're driving above the speed limit on the highway. Especially if you live in the US and are white.
- kjs3 3y agoWTF are you talking about. Being white means it's a non-issue. Being not-white is potentially fatal.
- DangitBobby 3y agoI'm pretty sure that's why they are asking white people to think about it. Others already know.
- rixed 3y agoI think you missed the point
- nonethewiser 3y agoJust tragic. Hard to imagine living in such a backwards place
- wahnfrieden 3y ago[flagged]
- b59831 3y agoSame? So ICE will arrest you for a VPN? ICE runs concentration camps? This comparison is silly.
- stevofolife 3y agoThanks for this elaboration. Upon reading original comment, it felt very strange that she was "encamped" for using VPN to access her school homework. Immediately I knew there was more than it meets the eye.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoIt’s subjective of course, but the real story seems worse.
- psychphysic 3y agoThe best bit is that we're enacting very similar laws in the West [0]. As much as China is often deplorable I do wonder how much of a blind spot we have here to our own sins. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36428046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36428046
- pessimizer 3y agoExactly. This is the period when Muslim ethnic groups like the Uigurs were being rounded up on any pretense to be reeducated into not wanting to be separatists anymore (often with no indication that they had anything to do with separatism other than their ethnicity.) Seeing the VPN pop up was more than enough of an excuse. Calling it a "genocide" is 99% propaganda, but it was obviously a sinofication meant to get rid of separatist identities and cultures, and a horrible injustice. In the beginning, they were inspired and immunized by the US's anti-Muslim fervor during the GWB invasions (we were not only not criticizing, but probably even sharing intelligence with China.)
- matchapples 3y agoWhy do you say it's 99% propaganda? "sinofication" sounds a lot like "eliminating the existing culture" which sounds a lot like genocide. Genocide is more than just murdering everyone like in some of the most well known cases like the Holocaust -- it includes elimination of an ethnic group by any means possible, including "nativification"
- ineptech 3y agoI understand where you're coming from, but -cide implies killing.
- KptMarchewa 3y agoOf a nation or ethnic group.
- ImPostingOnHN 3y agothe "cide" in genocide refers to destroying for example, a cultural genocide refers to destroying culture, e.g. Uighur or Muslim culture
- woooooo 3y agoWould you say the choice of the word "genocide" here is because it's the most accurate description of what's going on? Or is it chosen for rhetorical/propaganda effect without too much concern for accuracy?