China, according to the New York Times, would be overseeing the Muslim minority of the gods Uighurs collecting their DNA samples and fingerprints, as well as scanning the face and voice. Between 2016 and 2017, about 36 millions of people would participate in the program known as Exams for everyone: formally a health check-up, but in reality a way to collect sensitive data, thus expanding the information database through which the Uighurs population is monitored. According to the press agency Xinhua, the population of Xinjiang, predominantly Uigura, is from 24 million people. If they participated in the program 36 million people, the accounts do not add up. There is a suspicion that the DNA samples were collected without the consent of the population. "They had no choice", Confirmed to the Times the anthropologist of the University of Washington, Darren Byler, which has been dealing with the Uyghur population for years.
"There is a strong coercive element in this story". The program it was voluntary but the inhabitants of the Xinjiang they would have been bombarded with calls and text messages, even by the police, until they had agreed to undergo the visits. The version is also confirmed by an Uighur heard from the Guardian who explained how the local authorities "they demanded everyone's participation in the exams", And like the police "Work hard to convince everyone to participate", but never explain to what purposes the dna.
La DNA collection it was also performed using instruments and skills provided by companies and US geneticists. To sell to the Chinese authorities the machinery necessary for the analysis of the DNA was in fact the Thermo Fisher, Massachusetts private medical company. To compare the genetic makeup of Uighurs with that of other populations, to learn to distinguish correctly, the Chinese authorities also relied on the material provided by the doctor Kenneth Kidd of Yale University, one of the best-known American geneticists.