China's Xinjiang, home to the country's Uyghur Muslim population, has been faced with state-sponsored oppression for decades. A recently released report revealed that a mobile "tracking" application has been used by police officers and authorities to monitor Uyghur citizens.

Human Rights Watch, in collaboration with Berlin-based security firm Cure53, reverse engineered the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP) app and found that authorities collect personal information of the Xinjiang population - that are not just limited to name, height, and blood type.

Information such as which apps the individual uses (including WhatsApp) and how much electricity the person consumes are some of the things collected via the "Big Brother" app, as HRW calls it. The app also allows for the reporting of suspicious activities by alerting a nearby government official to look into the matter further. The official then decides whether the person involved should be investigated.

"The mass surveillance system presents the possibility of real-time, all-encompassing surveillance. Chinese authorities are collecting an oceanic amount of data about people to develop a fine-grained understanding of human behavior, and then controlling that behavior," HRW writes in the report. 

In Aug. 2018, it was reported that China locks up Muslims in camps. More than one million are held in what are allegedly "counter-extremism centers" in the far west of the country, according to Gay McDougall, the vice chairperson of the UN anti-discrimination committee.

"Another two million have been forced into so-called re-education camps for political and cultural indoctrination," she added. 

According to BuzzFeed News, the detainees are "held without charge, taught Chinese, compelled to sing patriotic songs and learn Chinese Communist Party doctrine."

Muslims in China have faced persecution for years. The government has banned parents from giving their kids certain Islamic names and also prohibited burqas and so-called "abnormal beards."

China's Uyghur, a predominantly Muslim minority in the country, constitute about 45 percent of the Xinjiang province's population, according to the BBC. 

On Wednesday, an Australian court convicted Khaled Khayat, one of two Lebanese-Australian brothers charged with planning a terror attack on a flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi.

In July 2017, the 51-year-old and his brother, Mahmoud, were both charged with plotting to blow up an Etihad flight carrying 400 passengers with military grade explosives concealed in a meat grinder. According to the BBC, police had also accused both men of planning a chemical gas attack in Sydney.

A jury in the New South Wales (NSW) Supreme Court had found Khaled Khayat guilty after two days of deliberations but failed to reach a verdict regarding his brother, leading to the jury's discharge. 

"Justice Christine Adamson today dismissed the jury from the Parramatta Supreme Court, meaning Mahmoud Khayat could face a re-trial at a later date," reported ABC on the discharged jury that was supposed to reach a verdict regarding Mahmoud. 

As for Khaled, he is set to be sentenced on July 26 with a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.

During his trial, the court heard Khayat "was motivated to support militant groups fighting the Syrian regime and to promote Islamic State." His lawyer, Richard Pontella, argued that the man had been trying to prevent a terrorist attack but the jury completely rejected these claims.

Earlier reports on the foiled plot revealed that Lebanon played a major role in preventing the attack. 

This came after Lebanese intelligence forces began monitoring three Khayat brothers when they learned that their fourth sibling, Tarek, was a senior ISIS member based in Raqaa, Syria.

Other than Khaled and Mahmoud, Amer, the third brother involved in the failed plan, was arrested upon arriving in Lebanon in mid-July 2017.

Investigations revealed that "an IS operative in Turkey sent a 'high-end military grade explosive' to the brothers in Australia" to help them create a bomb. After putting it together, the brothers hid the detonative device in a meat grinder. 

Though the accused built up the device, their plan failed and was uncovered before it was planted on the flight because the bag they used to carry the bomb proved to be too heavy to be checked in.