29 Apr 2021
Exploiting the right to internet access to infringe other human rights
Blog
Our intern Maaike Stroeks wrote a blog post on exploiting the right to internet access and how it infringes other human rights for the Leiden Security & Global Affairs blog.
In an authoritarian context such as Xinjiang, the right to internet access appears to favor Chinese state surveillance and detention of Uyghurs, acting as a disruptor, rather than an enabler, of Uyghur human rights.
In July 2009, deadly riots broke out between Muslim Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang autonomous region. Convinced that the riots had been orchestrated via the internet, text messages and long-distance phone calls, the Chinese government shut down the region’s internet access for 10 months, rendering it the longest internet shutdown in Chinese history.
Read the entire blog post here.
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