Despite Beijing’s decision to ease some restrictions after protests over its “zero Covid” policy, Chinese authorities have not abandoned their mandate to be “ruthless” with protesters, deploying a battery of technological means to locate them, from tracking of mobile phones to facial recognition.

“The police couldn’t find me, so they went to my mother’s house at two in the morning to ask where I was. When they found me at home, they They proved that they followed my every move, what time I went out, what street I was on on Sunday evening. They forced me to confess that I was at the demonstration,” explained a 35-year-old woman in dialogue with Radio France International (RFI).

The testimony of the woman is one of many circulating in these hours and denounces the ferocity with which the Chinese security forces have launched a persecution against the demonstrators, protagonists of a popular uprising of unprecedented scale for decades in the Asian giant.

In the case cited by RFI, the woman, named Mian Hua, was located using cell phone tracking. Police he forced her to sign a document agreeing not to participate again in illegal demonstrations.

“I’m a little scared because I’ve been booked. They watch me. Every time I see a police car I get nervous. I pay close attention to what I’m doing. When I leave the house I delete all foreign applications from my cell phone. He also removed my SIM card so they can’t track me,” Hua explained, explaining how her attitude changed after the episode.

According to Wang Shengsheng, a lawyer who offers free legal assistance to protesters, at least one of the emblematic protesters of the protests against the “zero Covid” policy It’s disappeared.

“The authorities seized the mobile phones of some protesters. Some of them disappeared, such as the student of the Nanjing Communication Institute, who was the before showing a blank sheet of paper. We don’t know where it is. The others were arrested by the police for disturbing public order,” Shengsheng said.

The blank sheet of demonstrations has become a symbol of protest against censorship in China.

technology and persecution

In Beijing, police were able to use cell phone location data. He also managed to obtain this information by asking the taxis that picked up the protesters, and that checked health passes.

Many people in Beijing “didn’t understand why the police contacted them when they they just passed the meeting place and they did not participate,” says the lawyer.

In Shanghai, police summoned identified people for questioning and confiscated their phones “possibly to extract all their data,” he added.

In Guangzhou, some people assured the lawyer their Telegram accounts were hacked after police checks during demonstrations.

The Telegram accounts of protesters detained in Beijing they were still active while in prisonthe latter’s friends told the lawyer, suggesting the police had access to them.

On high alert due to reports of new arrests and police intimidation, they dispatch protesters messages in encrypted newsgroupswhich can only be accessed via VPN software that is illegal in China.

Source: AFP and RFI