Authorities in China’s ‘basic dictatorship’ have begun strapping tracking bracelets onto citizens to ensure they comply with quarantine measures.
According to health authorities in Hong Kong, treating innocent people like criminals on parole for the sin of travelling, catching COVID, or coming in contact with someone possibly infected with COVID is a “humane” approach to enforcing quarantine rules.
“We have to make sure that home isolation is more precise while being humane,” said Hong Kong health secretary Lo Chung-mau.
According to the Guardian, breaking the quarantine order in Hong Kong comes with a fine of up to $3,200 USD and up to six months in prison.
Of course, the bracelets spark very different feelings in ordinary citizens being subject to the new measure.
“This bracelet can connect to the Internet; it can definitely record my whereabouts; it is basically the same as electronic fetters and handcuffs. I won’t wear this,” a Chinese social media user on Weibo told Reuters.
For those that don’t know, Weibo is like Twitter, but the CCP surveils and censors it.
China previously utilized such technology in 2020, utilizing two bracelets: one less conspicuous bracelet with a QR code that people needed to scan to access public spaces and another more obvious bracelet with a full-on tracking device.
Whether or not Western countries try such a measure is anyone’s guess. However, Australia and Isreal have considered doing it.
“No one specifically asked for electronic bracelets, but what we do insist on is enforcing quarantine. Whatever technological instrument is used is immaterial,” said the head of Isreal’s public health department in January 2021.
While the CCP is no champion of human rights, they’ve recently been upping the ante when it comes to their abuses.
Earlier this year, they separated children from their families if they tested positive for COVID. Children were subsequently jammed shoulder to shoulder in steel cribs in quarantine facilities.
Moreover, the lockdowns in April were the strictest yet seen, wherein citizens could not leave their apartments for anything, even food. Some people were recorded leaping from their balconies to their death to escape their suffering.
