According to Time , Human Rights Watch said it has evidence that the Chinese government is carrying out a “systematic campaign” of rights abuses against Turkic Muslims living in the country’s western Xinjiang Province, accusing authorities of arbitrary detention, torture and far-reaching controls over everyday life.

The group said in a report that Xinjiang’s Muslim population of about 13 million has been subjected to “forced political indoctrination, collective punishment, restrictions on movement and communications, heightened religious restrictions, and mass surveillance in violation of international human rights law.”

China is installing QR codes on the homes of the Uyghur Muslim

Uighurs and other Muslims held in the camps are forbidden from using Islamic greetings, must learn Mandarin Chinese and sing propaganda songs, according to a report by Human Rights Watch based on interviews with five former camp detainees.

According to Independent, China is installing QR codes on the homes of the Uyghur Muslim community in order to get instant access to the personal details of people living there, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

Officials reportedly scan the “smart” doorplates with mobile devices before entering homes to monitor the inhabitants.

Using of facial recognition technology

In May, Chinese state media said more than a million local Chinese Communist officials were being sent to live with local families in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs were forced to welcome officials into their homes, where they were subjected to “political education”.

Security conditions in Xinjiang outside the camps had also intensified markedly and now bear “a striking resemblance to those inside”, Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch researcher Maya Wang said, based on interviews with 58 former Xinjiang residents now living abroad.

Wang and her team only spoke with people who had left Xinjiang due to a lack of access to the region and to avoid endangering those still living there.

New security measures described by interviewees include proliferating checkpoints that make use of facial recognition technology and sophisticated police monitoring systems, such as each house having a QR code that, when scanned, shows the authorities who the approved occupants are.

Monitoring of Islamic religious practices, such as asking people how often they pray and the closure of mosques, as well as regular visits by party officials to rural parts of Xinjiang, mean that practicing Islam “has effectively been outlawed,” Wang said.

In its 117-page report, “‘Eradicating Ideological Viruses’: China’s Campaign of Repression Against Xinjiang’s Muslims,” Human Rights Watch presents new evidence of the Chinese government’s mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, and the increasingly pervasive controls on daily life, About Islam told.

It isn’t the first time

It isn’t the first time the Chinese government has been accused of oppressing minorities in Xinjiang or other parts of the country, abc17news reportes.

The United Nations human rights panel said in August that China is believed to be holding up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs in a secretive system of “internment camps” in Xinjiang, in China’s far west, where they undergo political education.

“The Chinese government is committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang on a scale unseen in the country in decades,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at HRW.

The campaign of repression in Xinjiang is key test of whether the United Nations and concerned governments will sanction an increasingly powerful China to end this abuse,” she added, msn told.

Chinese authorities launched an anti-terror campaign in 2014 called “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Extremism.” But that effort has ramped up considerably since Communist Party Secretary Chen Quanguo took control of the operation in 2016, HRW said.

China said Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants

China has said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between Uighurs who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority, Reuters reported .

China foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang declined to give a detailed response to the report and said that Human Rights Watch was a group “full of prejudice” against China that distorts facts.

Measures in Xinjiang aim to “promote stability, development, unity and livelihoods”, while also cracking down on “ethnic separatism and violent terrorist criminal activities”, he told a regular briefing.

US sanctions against Chinese senior officials and companies

The U.S. State Department expressed deep concern over China’s ‘worsening crackdown’ on minority Muslims in the Xinjiang region, as the Trump administration considered sanctions against Chinese senior officials and companies linked to allegations of human rights abuses,   The Globe and Mail told.