Persecution of Muslims: Chinese border guards place apps on tourist phones

Chinese border police secretly installed supervisory applications on visitors' phones and uploaded their personal data, the British newspaper The Guardian revealed.

The Chinese government has banned the freedoms and rights of the Muslim population in the province of Xinjang by installing facial recognition cameras in the streets and mosques, and reportedly forcing residents to upload software doing research on their phones.

In an investigation by The Guardian and international partners, translate Periscopi, it has found that travelers were targeted when they tried to enter the region from the neighbouring country, Kyrgyzstan.

The border guards would pick up the visitors ' phones and install the app that would reveal their emails, texts and contacts, as well as other information.

Tourists have said they were not warned by the authorities in advance of what they were doing.

The application was said to have been set to see the relationship of individuals to Islamic extremism. However, the monitoring app also asked for more information, whether they had fasted for Ramadan or in Dalai Lama's literature.

About 100 million people visit the Xinjiang region each year, according to Chinese authorities. That includes much of the foreign tourists. /Periscope