US adds eight companies to its ‘blacklist’ for human rights violations

On Tuesday, December 10, the United States announced trade restrictions targeting eight companies, including two Chinese and several Russian, due to human rights violations. Zhejiang Uniview Technologies, one of the targeted Chinese companies, is accused by U.S. officials of enabling human rights abuses, such as surveillance of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups. The other Chinese company cited by the U.S. Commerce Department is Beijing Zhongdun Security Technology Group, which allegedly develops and sells products that enable public security authorities to commit rights violations. The companies were added to an “entity list,” which requires U.S. companies to hold a license before exporting to them. “Human rights violations are contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States,” Undersecretary for Commerce, Industry and Security Alan Estevez said in a statement. Adding these companies to the entity list aims to “ensure that American technology is not used to enable human rights violations and abuses,” he added. Also read the column | Article reserved for our subscribers “Welcoming Xi Jinping is a policy of complicity in the Uighur genocide” Read later Objective: prevent human rights violations and abuses The American government and legislators from several other Western countries have criticized the treatment reserved by China to the Uyghur minority in the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Human rights groups say at least a million people, mostly Muslim minorities, have been incarcerated in the region and face various abuses, while Beijing vehemently denies the accusations. Two companies located in Myanmar, and two others in Russia, are also affected by these restrictions, for their role in supplying the Burmese army with components allowing them to carry out acts such as aerial attacks against civilians, added the Ministry of Commerce. Finally, two other Russian companies are accused of providing facial recognition technology to Moscow “in order to target peaceful protesters, an integral part of Russia’s mass surveillance apparatus.” Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Two human rights defenders sentenced to heavy sentences in China Read later Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content



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