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Comment by Shank | Hacker News Reader

This is the kind of censorship and control that becomes very difficult to escape once activated. It seems imperative to me that anyone living in China who isn't already well off aught to consider having a backup plan in the event that communication with the outside world is completely disrupted.

This isn't the kind of move anyone should be taking lightly, more so for those directly in the country being cut off.

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I have Satcom and HAM Radio as the backup, but I'm afraid they could be useless when law enforcements involved. A visa and plane ticket may be more realistic in the case.

Both of them are legal, but

1) for HAM Radio you need to apply for a license, acquire a call sign, the process is not very painful, but takes some time. People in HAM circles are really very nice and quite friendly, btw.

2) SatCom and other one-way or two-way systems are under control by the "State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television", but they have no legislation, they need to ask local police nicely to intervene or to talk to you.

Using these techs as a harmless individual may be safe, but if things get worse, circumventing GFW could be criminalized.

>Satcom and HAM Radio

What is the punishment for being found owning/using that sort of equipment in China, if any?

I suspect that no one would care unless you do something evil (but nowadays people use the thing called internet). I found an active forum www.hellocq.net via a quick google search and there are >100 posts today.

For most of the people, there is no need to communicate "with the outside world".

That's something a censorship proponent would say. But if it was the case there would be no need for censorship.

There're quite a lot parts in Xinjiang has converted to Islam in last few decades. Also, there is an effective executive order making laws easier for minority[1]. For those who don't know, eastern Turkestan is always trying to take the land. It looks more like a wartime regulation than regular censorship in peace time to me.

[1] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/兩少一寬

> Converted to Islam in the last few decades.

Uyghurs have always been Muslim. Infact their genetic makeup is Turkic as opposed to Han/Hui Chinese.

I'm aware of the PRC's attempts to remove any sign of self-identity by force-feeding them during the Islamic month of Ramadan, and banning beards, etc.

First : can we stop conflating ethnic makeup and religion ? It is an ugly, racist ideology that muslims keep pushing. Race and religion have nothing to do with eachother.

Obviously Uighurs have not "always been muslim" (aside from the obvious: the ethnic group is far, far older than mohammedanism). They "converted" when they were conquered by a foreign state, who called themselves "the black Khans", supported by other foreign states. In practice, few doubt that it was the muslim way : convert, slavery or die.

Since muslims force people to convert, and have the death penalty for conversion out of islam, it seems extremely hypocritical to criticize the imposition of foreign culture. What is your argument against it ? It's not nice when others do it ?

Religious flamewars are not allowed on Hacker News. Please don't.

Well "the outside world" includes stuff like Wikipedia, Gmail and services that people want to use and have access to, even in Chinese but hosted outside of China.

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