Xinjiang Surveillance Company won the Amazon ceremony

With the Amazon logo Behind him and in the face of the rising scenarios of Shanghai’s venture capital, the stage executive gave his pitch. His company, Renwei Electronics, is assisting Chinese authorities in monitoring prisoners and detainees – alerting guards to their movements, as well as those with heartbeats.

Renwieh expands its “smart prison” system in China’s Xinjiang region, home to one million Muslim minorities they have been locked up.

However, that didn’t stop Renwer from receiving a warm reception at an Amazon-sponsored event. ”joint innovation center”In November. Event organizers provided a platform for the Renwe executive to give a “road show for investors” style talk to some of China’s most reputable investors. And Renwiek “product innovation awardRecognizing “six” as “outstanding entrepreneurial entrepreneurs”.

He sent a detailed list of questions, but Amazon declined to comment on the record. Renwiki did not respond to a request for comment.

The growing list of multinational corporations is under increasing pressure to move supply chains away from Xinjiang, among the biggest evidence of this mass arrest and forced labor there, within what the US and other countries have recently called genocide. Congress is examining a bill to ban imports from Xinjiang contaminated by forced labor, and U.S. customs have already banned tomatoes and cotton products in the region, among other things.

Amazon turn off He did e-commerce in China in 2019, but other parts of his vast empire still operate with Chinese customers, including the profitable affiliate of cloud computing Amazon Web Services.

AWS runs a joint innovation center with local government in Shanghai and business organizations. The center encourages startups by providing AWS cloud resources and technical support, and helps them acquire talent and comply with government regulations, according to event announcement. It is unclear what benefits Renwi and other award-winning companies received. The center’s website emphasizes that the companies it supports also leverage Amazon’s resources and reputation.

Horizon Advisory, a Washington-based geopolitical consultancy based on the Renwi Award and the Amazon event, was first noticed in a study shared with BuzzFeed News.

Renwewir technology has been used Prisons all over China include the Zhongjiazhuang prison near the city of Shihezi. Prison administers Xinjiang is a powerful Production and Construction Corps, a paramilitary and governmental organization that last year imposed sanctions on the U.S., citing its link to the region’s human rights violations.

BuzzFeed News located the Shawan County Prison in Xinjiang via satellite imagery. Official photo The rounded front door of the prison, published in 2016, shows a carved ironwork and a lion statue to the left of the entrance. Behind the door, a road leads to a two- or three-story building. A white wall and a row of trees run down the road. The Google Earth image shows the shadow of the door on the ground, a light-colored object 2.5 meters high, matching the lion statue, and the same line of east-west walls and trees. The roof of the building behind it also matches the photo.

The Chinese government has forced more than a million Muslim minorities, including Uighurs, Kazakhs, Hui Muslims and others into mass incarceration camps in the past four years. BuzzFeed News research last year found the government expanded its campaign tremendously since 2017, building hundreds of new compounds with characteristics of internment camps and prisons. The first ten people were arrested there describe abuse, deprivation and habitual humiliation within, overcrowding and food shortages, beatings and even torture. The government says the system of internalization frameworks is to “transform through education” and to radicalize extremism.

Government data analyzed by the New York Times shows that During this time, the population of Xinjiang prisons has also increased; In 2017, the region accounted for 21% of all arrests, just 2% of the population. The Muslim minority makes up about half of Xinjiang’s population. According to government data, courts controlled by the Chinese Communist Party convict more than 99% of the accused.

Prisons in many parts of the world, including the United States, use data-driven systems to monitor and control inmates. But in Xinjiang, the government campaign specifically goals by arresting ethnic minorities for religious practices, family ties abroad, or other conduct that is suspicious or threatening to the state.

Renwei describes its system “as an important platform for digital prisons to improve their management skills through information technology.” It uses image processing, data encryption, cloud computing, and “big data” to implement a remotely controlled “employee location system”. says the company. The data is routed to a centralized platform that authorities can use to “make management decisions”.

Renwewi says this improves efficiency and helps prison staff “get new ideas for preventive prevention, central accident control and post-accident verification”. Renwiki says an early warning system indicates when police attack, and when detainees enter areas where they are prohibited. Prisoners may be given electronic devices that monitor their heartbeat and other key signs to “reduce the risk of law enforcement.” Renwi says the system helps people avoid running away or killing themselves.

High-tech surveillance is a feature of life in Xinjiang’s camps and prisons. They have more than two dozen people first arrested he told BuzzFeed News that they were monitored in real time by cameras located in the corners of the cells as well as in the toilets. Guardians can punish them for petty offenses by speaking their mother tongue instead of Mandarin Chinese.

Renwi has also received recognition from China’s home security service, the Ministry of Public Security. The company attended a ministerial promotion conference attended by the department’s deputy minister and other government officials.

In addition to the capitalist risks of Shanghai, the audience on November 16, 2020 Amazon event executives of multinational giants such as Siemens and Kone Elevators, among others, according to a press release about the event.

On stage, the Renwe executive spent about 11 minutes exploring a PowerPoint presentation that covered every aspect of the business, and warned that the system could be used not only in prisons, but also in detention centers. At the end, he looked at the investors and asked them questions. ●