COPS are sending people to "concentration camps" if they’re found with Facebook on their phones during random stop and searches in China, it is claimed.

Western social media is banned in China’s Xinjiang region where police are accused of seizing residents' phones and installing spyware.

5 Pictures uploaded to Twitter show buildings in China that are allegedly being used as 're-education' camps Credit: @kasimUyghur/Twitter

5 Picture shows a CCTV camera in China's terrifying police state where people are being sent to the camps if they're found to have the Facebook app on their phones Credit: @kasimUyghur/Twitter

Offenders are said to be sent to "re-education" camps to clamp down on social media use.

Mandatory spyware is downloaded onto citizen’s phones to restrict what citizens can access.

And police check mobiles for evidence of foreign social media apps like Twitter or WhatsApp.

Xinjiang is home to 11 million Uighurs - one of China’s fifty-five ethnic minorities who have their own language and mainly practice Islam.

The Chinese government is accused of routinely targeting citizens of the region with “counter-terror” measures and brutal policing.

Kasim, who claims to be a Xinjiang native, shared what he says are secretly taken pictures inside the secretive region, which the Chinese government restricts access to by outsiders.

He says he used special software to bypass the government's censors and post the images on Twitter.

And he said living in China is “like Nazi Germany” and likened the Chinese Communist Party to ISIS.

He said: “If you [have] got Twitter or Facebook in your phone, you will be sentenced to 15 years in concentration camps.”

Kasim told The Sun Online: “China doesn’t want you to know what’s happening outside of China, so they’ve built a firewall.

“Police check your phone looking for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – any app not made in China.

“If they catch you with any of these apps, or in contact with someone abroad - even someone from China who has now left the country - they accuse you of hating communism, of hating China.

“Almost every police [officer] has handheld equipment they connect to your phone with a USB where they can scan everything on your phone, all your photos, everyone you’ve ever spoken to.

“They transfer everything to their own system, iPhones only take about three minutes to scan – other phones can take hours.”

Images shared by another activist claim to show cops on a tube train approaching passengers to check their phones.

Sun Online has been unable to verify the authenticity of the pictures.



COPS CHECKING PHONES

But reports of Chinese police manually checking phones are not uncommon and have been confirmed by rights groups.

Maya Wang, China senior researcher from Human Rights Watch, told Sun Online: “Police [in Xinjiang] are checking people’s phones.

“There have been several testimonies from people who have been detained in these political re-education facilities for using Whatsapp.”

Kasim also shared pictures of what he says are two of these facilities, calling them “concentration camps” and saying he risked his life to photograph them.

He claimed one camp is a now-abandoned hospital that can allegedly hold up to 7,000 people.

Another image shows a white building with high walls and an impenetrable-looking fence.

Political re-education facilities are legal in the region and implemented by the Chinese government as “counter-terrorism measures”.

FACEBOOK MOBILE USERS SENT TO 'CAMPS'

But Lijan Zhao of the Chinese Embassy attacked the use of the term “concentration camps”, branding it “Western propaganda”.

Instead, he insisted China simply runs “educational centres” to combat terror.

“Students” in the re-education facilities can be kept there indefinitely.

Kasim told us: “I’m currently in East Turkestan [the Uighur name for Xinjiang].

“It’s impossible to video chat, or speak over the phone because the police are listening, if they find me I am dead.”

Kasim also shared images of a number of mosques that he says have been shut down.

It has previously been reported that China has been destroying mosques and churches as part of a wider crackdown on religion.

He also alleged police target those who don’t look or speak Chinese - another widely reported allegation, according to rights groups.

Kasim said: “If you are not looking Chinese on the outside then you are a terrorist on the [inside].

“They can put you to death without any reason.”

China is famously secretive about its use of the death penalty.

If you are not looking Chinese on the outside then you are a terrorist on the [inside]. They can put you to death without any reason Kasim

Maya Wang of the Human Rights Watch told us: “There is really no information about the use of the death penalty, the situation is particularly opaque in Xinjiang.”

China was branded the ‘world’s top executioner’ in 2018 after a report from Amnesty International claimed China carried out “more death sentences than the rest of the world combined”.

Sun Online also spoke to another anonymous Uighur man who claimed to be living in Poland after escaping from Xinjiang in 2017.

He said: “It’s so scary that it’s hard to explain. Police check your phone for anything religious or Islamic.

“It’s really hard to download anything from the outside world.”

The man told us that he hasn’t seen his mother in two years after she was arrested and detained by Chinese police while attempting to escape from Xinjiang to Japan.

Sun Online has been unable to confirm his account.

China 'forcing' citizens to download 'Xi Jinping news' CHINA is forcing tens of millions of citizens to download an app heralding the work of President Xi Jinping, according to reports. They are being made to use the 'Study the Great Nation' app which lets users to earn points by following the latest news about Mr Xi and the Communist Party. Study the Great Nation was developed by technology giant Alibaba and launched at the beginning of this year. It's already the most downloaded app for Apple devices in the country, overtaking WeChat, with state media claiming it now has more than 100m registered users. The app has been compared to Chairman Mao’s controversial “Little Red Book” distributed during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. It is thought to be the latest attempt to solidify Mr Xi’s control over China.

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But Ms Wang told us: “It’s not uncommon to hear stories like this. It’s very believable that happened.”

The control of China’s police state even extends to the hospitals, where you need an ID and a full body search to enter.

The activist shared photos of what he claims to be cops conducted checks outside a hospital with tall metal gates.

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