China: Surveillance

(asked on 24th September 2019) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the level of use of variables on (a) ethnicity and (b) religion in (i) visual identification and (ii) suspect profiling systems used by the Chinese Government in Xinjiang.


Answered by
Heather Wheeler Portrait
Heather Wheeler
This question was answered on 30th September 2019

We are aware of reports that citizens in Xinjiang are being required to provide information to Chinese authorities about religious observance and foreign contacts. We are also aware of reports that such data is used to categorise citizens, and that ethnicity and religion are being used as designators. We are monitoring the situation closely. FCO officials regularly travel to the region to attempt to verify such reports; they most recently visited in May 2019. We remain concerned about any disproportionate and indiscriminate measures that undermine freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

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