WASHINGTON: The United States unveiled trade restrictions Tuesday on eight companies, including two Chinese firms and several from Russia, alleging human rights violations.
The China-based companies identified include Zhejiang Uniview Technologies, which US officials accuse of enabling human rights violations, AFP reported.
The other firm named by the US Commerce Department was Beijing Zhongdun Security Technology Group, which is said to develop and sell products allowing public security authorities to carry out rights violations.
The businesses were added to an “entity list,” which requires US companies to have a license before exporting to them.
“Human rights abuses are contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States,” claimed Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez in a statement.
Adding these companies to the entity list aims to “ensure that US technology is not used to enable human rights violations and abuses,” he added.
A spokeswoman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday the sanctions were an “open and fearless suppression of Chinese high-tech companies under the guise of human rights”.
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“This further exposes the falsehood that the US protects human rights, and the reality that it deprives the Chinese people of their development rights. Such ploys will never succeed,” Mao Ning said at a regular press briefing.
“If the US really cares about human rights, it should first patch up its own rights debts.”
Among other firms targeted on Tuesday were two in Myanmar and two others in Russia over their roles in supplying Myanmar’s military with components allowing them to carry out acts like aerial attacks against civilians, the Commerce Department said.
Two other Russian entities were included for providing facial recognition technology to Moscow “to target peaceful protesters, an integral component of Russia’s mass surveillance apparatus.”
