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Others say the expansion of monitoring is intended not just to cut crime but to systematically reduce the space for dissent.
"When dissidents are released from prison or labour camp they often find the surveillance cameras are pointing directing into their homes. That's something I have heard of a lot in the last couple of years," said Wang Songlian, of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders Network.
The artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained for two months this year, produced a marble sculpture titled Surveillance Camera, mimicking the machines posted outside his studio.
The Shanghai rights lawyer Li Tiantian revealed that security officials sought to use footage to increase her isolation during a three-month detention. "They even forced my boyfriend and his brothers and sisters to watch a video that showed me walking into a hotel with other men," she wrote on Twitter.
Wang said state security used cameras to track individuals at sensitive times, but they probably also relied on them for deterrence. "I think the effect is more to intimidate activists - so they feel everything they do is under watch - rather than to gather evidence," she said.
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