News
(23-09-15)
U.S. tech companies seeking access to China's domestic market should not look the other way in the face of serious Internet-related human rights abuses in the country., Amnesty International said on the occasion of Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting with several leading US technology companies on Wednesday..
Senior Apple executives are expected to attend, Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft to the US-China Internet Industry Forum, part of President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States.
“American technology companies must put people and principles before profits.”, and defend freedom on the Internet. “They should not turn a blind eye to China's repression of the Internet to gain access to the lucrative Chinese market.”, affirms William Nee, Researcher at China at Amnesty International.
“If American technology companies ally themselves with the Chinese government, They could end up being complicit in the imprisonment of people who are only exercising their right to freedom of expression on the Internet.”
China's Internet Model Severely Limits Freedom of Expression Online. Since President Xi came to power, hundreds of people have been arrested just for expressing their opinions on the Internet.
Authorities continue to use criminal legislation to unjustifiably limit freedom of expression and the right to privacy, even with the arrest and imprisonment of activists for online publications that fall into the hands of state censors.
Attack on Internet freedom
The proposed new computer security law would only serve to exacerbate surveillance and censorship on the Internet, that are already strict, in china. The law would require service providers to store all personal data in China and hand it over to authorities without any independent oversight., to preserve the “sovereignty of cyberspace”.
According to the New York Times, Chinese authorities have recently written to several major US technology companies asking them to commit to following these practices.
“Internet freedom is being attacked around the world. on Wednesday, “Major technology companies must unequivocally reject China’s concept of cyberspace sovereignty and refuse to hand over data to Chinese authorities if they do not want to be complicit in repression.”, concluded William Nee.
Additional information
The meeting will be held to coincide with the first anniversary of the sentencing of Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti to life imprisonment on the unfounded charge of “separatism.””. ILHAM TOHTİ —whom Amnesty International considers a prisoner of conscience— founded the Uighur Online website, and articles published on said website were used as evidence against him in his unfair trial.
Thousands of websites are still blocked in China, including those on Facebook, Instagram y Twitter. News sites such as the BBC and the New York Times are also banned.. Dozens of phrases are censored on social networks, including any mention of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
Governments around the world are increasingly using technology to suppress free speech, censor information about human rights violations and conduct indiscriminate mass surveillance under the pretext of security, often in collaboration with large companies.
The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have undermined Internet freedoms with the National Security Agency's indiscriminate mass surveillance programs (NSA) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) that invade the private lives of people around the world.
Some companies based in Western countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy export software that allows governments to access the computers of human rights activists, bloggers and journalists, and could lead to the persecution of these people.
Internet companies have a responsibility to respect international human rights in their global operations. This entails implementing proactive measures so that serious human rights abuses can be avoided.. A law requiring companies to store and hand over private information to Chinese authorities would force them to act contrary to their responsibility to respect human rights.; Companies must refuse to comply with these measures to respect freedom of expression and related rights. Companies should not voluntarily and uncritically disclose private information due to the serious implications that this would have..
#Stopfollowingme
More information in the Stop Following Me campaign, launched last March by Amnesty International
Category: China, Companies, USA
More information
Press office of the Spanish Section of Amnesty International, A loss., 91 310 12 77
AI Documentation Center: doc.es.amnesty.org.
