China Covid Protesters Become Targets of Beijing’s Surveillance State


周二，中国各大城市都出动了警力，以防出现新的抗议活动，安全部门利用国内无处不在的监控系统，追查那些在大规模示威活动中呼吁结束严格防疫措施和批评国家领导人的人员。


居民表示，中国警方正在扫描社交媒体账户，以调查抗议者。

周二，中国各大城市都出动了警力，以防出现新的抗议活动，安全部门利用国内无处不在的监控系统，追查那些在大规模示威活动中呼吁结束严格防疫措施和批评国家领导人的人员。 6park.com
Police fanned out across China’s big cities Tuesday in an effort to prevent fresh protests, as security services harnessed the country’s pervasive surveillance system to hunt down participants in mass demonstrations calling for an end to strict Covid curbs and criticizing national leaders. 6park.com
  
与此同时，中国的公共卫生部门敦促地方政府避免不必要的长期封控。在严格的防疫措施实施近三年后，封控已引发公众愤怒。政府有关部门还调整了关于新冠病毒危险性的措辞，称奥密克戎变异株的致病力明显减弱。 6park.com
Meanwhile, China’s central public-health authorities urged local governments to avoid unnecessary and lengthy lockdowns—something that has sparked public ire after nearly three years of tough pandemic-control measures. Authorities also modulated their language about the dangers posed by the virus, saying the now-prevalent Omicron variant causes less serious disease. 6park.com
  
在北京的一次新闻发布会上，国家卫生健康委员会的说法似乎表明政府首次承认出现抗议活动，尽管措辞微妙。国家卫健委高级官员程有全称，近期群众反映的问题主要不是针对疫情防控本身，而是集中在防控措施简单化、层层加码、“一刀切”、忽视群众诉求等方面。 6park.com
The National Health Commission appeared to deliver the government’s first acknowledgment of the protests, if a subtle one, at a news briefing in Beijing. “The problems recently reflected by the masses are not primarily about pandemic prevention and control per se,” said Chen Youquan, a senior official with the NHC. Instead, he said, people are dissatisfied by poor implementation of controls at the local level. 6park.com
  
中央政府其他部门一直回避承认出现这些示威活动。在周一和周二的外交部例行记者会会上，当被问及抗议活动时，发言人赵立坚仅表示，中国公民行使权利必须遵守国家法律，并称中国的防控政策是科学、正确、有效的。 6park.com
Other parts of China’s central government have avoided acknowledging the demonstrations. Asked repeatedly about the protests at Foreign Ministry briefings on Monday and Tuesday, spokesman Zhao Lijian has said only that the rights of Chinese citizens must be exercised within the country’s laws and defended the Covid policies as “scientific, correct and effective.” 6park.com
  
抗议活动最初于上周末出现在中国几个大城市，包括北京和上海，人们积累的对动态清零政策的不满沸腾起来，演变为罕见的公开反抗。示威活动之前，周四新疆首府乌鲁木齐发生火灾，10人在火灾中丧生。一些居民认为，抗疫限制是导致救火延迟的原因之一。 6park.com
The protests first appeared over the weekend in several big cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, as accumulated frustration over the country’s zero-tolerance policies boiled over into a rare display of open defiance. The demonstrations followed a deadly fire on Thursday in Urumqi, the capital of the western region of Xinjiang. Some residents have suggested that pandemic restrictions contributed to delays in putting out a fire that killed 10 people. 6park.com
  
中国有关部门在主要城市的计划抗议地点部署了大量警察，似乎是要防止新的抗议活动不断出现。周二，根据《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)看到的社交媒体上的信息，在大量警察出现在深圳的几个地点后，一项原本计划在深圳举行的抗议活动被取消。同样，周一在北京和上海的抗议活动也被取消。 6park.com
Chinese authorities appear to be preventing fresh protests from taking root by deploying large numbers of police at the sites of planned protests in major cities. On Tuesday, a planned protest in Shenzhen was canceled after large numbers of police turned up at several locations in the city, according to messages on social media reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Similarly, protests on Monday were canceled in Beijing and Shanghai. 6park.com
  
周二晚，北京周日抗议地点附近的街道上几乎看不到人影，只有几十辆警车停在那里，闪着警灯。通常照亮亮马河两岸道路的灯光全都熄灭。由于疫情的原因，大多数餐馆都暂停了堂食，许多城市街区的店铺门面几乎全黑着。 6park.com
The streets of Beijing near the site of Sunday’s protest were almost entirely deserted on Tuesday evening, except for scores of police vehicles that idled with their lights flashing. The lights that normally illuminate paths along the Liangma River had been shut off. With most restaurants closed for dine-in because of Covid, the store fronts of many city blocks were almost entirely dark. 6park.com
  
在周二的一次会议上，中共中央政法委表示要切实维护社会大局稳定，称要坚决依法打击敌对势力渗透破坏活动。 6park.com
At a meeting Tuesday, China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission vowed to resolutely secure social stability, saying authorities would combat “infiltration and sabotage activities conducted by hostile forces.” 6park.com
  
抗议者通过Telegram沟通信息。Telegram是一个加密即时讯息应用，该平台上建立起了十多个聊天群组，用户在群组里讨论可能的抗议地点、警察部署在哪，以及警方讯问时如何保护隐私信息等话题。 6park.com
Protesters have been exchanging messages on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. At least a dozen group chats have formed, where users are discussing a range of topics, from the sites of possible protests, to where police are deployed and how to protect private information during police questioning. 6park.com
  
警方似乎也在利用即时讯息应用、社交媒体和手机数据来追踪那些组织和参与抗议活动的人。 6park.com
Police also appear to be using messaging apps, social media and cellphone data to track down those who are organizing and participating in protests. 6park.com
  
北京一名参与周日抗议活动的大学生说，警方已经与他就读的学校取得了联系。学校告诉他，警方使用手机数据追踪了他的行动，显示他曾到过抗议地点附近。这名大学生说他被要求写一份声明，解释他当时出现在那个地方的原因。 6park.com
A university student in Beijing who had participated in Sunday’s protest in the city said his school had been contacted by police. The school told him police had used mobile-phone data to track his movements to the vicinity of the protests. He said he had been asked to write a declaration explaining why he was present in the area at the time. 6park.com
  
一名住在浙江省的19岁学生说，他在一个中国社交媒体平台的群聊中说，自己准备在公共卫生间张贴白纸，仅几个小时之后，他就被当地警方传唤去接受讯问。抗议者曾在示威活动中举起白纸，以表达对审查制度的反对。 6park.com
A 19-year-old student who lives in Zhejiang Province said he was summoned by local police to come in for questioning only a few hours after he said in a group chat on a Chinese social-media platform that he planned to put up blank pieces of paper in public restrooms. Protesters have held up blank sheets of paper at demonstrations to express opposition to censorship. 6park.com
  
这名学生说，警方让他删掉聊天群里的这段话，以后不要再这样做。他说，中国政府对言论自由的控制已经达到了前所未有的程度。 6park.com
The student said the police told him to take the comment down in the group chat and never do it again. “The Chinese government’s control over free speech has reached an unprecedented level,” he said.


周一，聚集在北京的抗议者。

为来自北京、上海和其他城市的抗议者提供法律支持的律师Wang Shengsheng说，她正与至少15名被当地警方传唤的人保持联系。抗议者们告诉她，他们接到警方电话，警方说知道他们在抗议期间的行踪，要求他们来接受问话。这位律师称，她怀疑警方是利用手机和社交媒体账户的数据来追踪抗议者。 6park.com
Wang Shengsheng, a lawyer providing legal support to protesters from Beijing, Shanghai and other cities, said she is in touch with at least 15 people who have been summoned by local police. Protesters told her that they had received calls from police officers who said they knew their whereabouts during protests and asked them to come in for questioning. She said she suspected police were using data from mobile phones and social-media accounts to track down protesters. 6park.com
  
在习近平领导下，中国扩大了追踪公民行踪和活动的能力。虽然这并没有阻止抗议活动的爆发，但中国安全机构已开始依靠这一手段来防止抗议活动蔓延。中国城市街道上安装了数以亿计监控摄像头，其中一些配备了面部识别软件，除了借助这些设备，警方还有权获取详细的手机和社交媒体数据，这些数据可显示人们在特定时间的定位。中国政府在过去两年中加强了这些能力，以努力追踪新冠密接者的行踪，控制疫情蔓延。 6park.com
Under leader Xi Jinping, China has expanded its ability to track the movements and activities of its citizens. While this didn’t stop the protests from breaking out, China’s security apparatus has begun to lean on it to prevent them from spreading. Besides hundreds of millions of cameras, some equipped with facial-recognition software, that line city streets, the police also can access detailed mobile phone and social-media data that shows people’s locations at a given time. The government has enhanced these capabilities over the past two years as part of contact-tracing efforts to control the spread of the virus. 6park.com
  
上述Wang姓律师说，这些技术本来是为了给防疫工作提供便利，却变成了套在人们身上的枷锁。 6park.com
“These technologies, which were supposed to facilitate anti-Covid efforts, turned into shackles being put on us,” Ms. Wang said. 6park.com
  
北京市公安局暂未回应记者的书面置评请求。 6park.com
Beijing’s public-security bureau didn’t immediately respond to a written request for comment. 6park.com
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镇压抗议活动之际，中国有关部门正力图控制该国最严重的一波疫情。最近几天，中国新增本土新冠病例已超过4月份上海封控期间的峰值。据卫健委官员周二表示，周一中国新增本土新冠感染者逾3.7万人。 6park.com
The clampdown on protests has come as Chinese authorities are trying to contain the country’s worst wave of Covid. In recent days, virus cases in China have exceeded the previous peak hit in April during the Shanghai lockdown. The country recorded more than 37,000 new Covid cases on Monday, health officials said on Tuesday. 6park.com
  
卫健委官员周二承诺要继续研究新冠病毒并相应调整政策。官员们还称，将加紧为80岁以上老年人群接种疫苗。他们表示，到目前为止，这部分人群全程接种人数约占66%。 6park.com
Health officials vowed on Tuesday to continue observing the virus and adjusting policies accordingly. They also said they would step up efforts to vaccinate those 80 and older. About 66% of that age group has been fully vaccinated so far, they said.