US senator asks companies about China rights practices
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A US senator on Tuesday asked 30 leading companies, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, IBM, Nokia and Twitter, for information about their human rights practices in China after Google’s threat to leave the country over cyberattacks and Web censorship.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, also announced plans to hold a hearing in February on global Internet freedom.
He said the hearing would feature testimony from Barack Obama administration officials and from Google and other firms about their business practices in Internet-restricting countries.
“I commend Google for coming to the conclusion that cooperating with the ‘Great Firewall’ of China is inconsistent with their human rights responsibilities,” Durbin said in a statement.
“Google sets a strong example in standing up to the Chinese government’s continued failure to respect the fundamental human rights of free expression and privacy.
“I look forward to learning more about whether other American companies are willing to follow Google’s lead,” he said.
Durbin, the assistant Senate majority leader, said the letters seeking information about human rights practices in China had been sent to 30 information and communications technology companies.
Durbin’s letter asked each company for details of its business in China and to outline its “future plans for protecting human rights, including freedom of expression and privacy, in China.”
Companies were also asked to describe specific measures being taken to “ensure that your products/services do not facilitate human rights abuses by the Chinese government.”
The letters were sent to Acer, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Facebook, Fortinet, Hewlett-Packard, IAC, IBM, Juniper, Lenovo, McAfee, Motorola, News Corp., Nokia, Nokia Siemens, Oracle, Research in Motion, SAP, Siemens, Skype, Sprint Nextel, Toshiba, Twitter, Verizon, Vodafone and Websense.
Google said last month that following cyberattacks on the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists it was no longer willing to censor Web search results in China even it that means it has to leave the country.
Google has not yet stopped censoring search results on google.cn, but Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has said it would happen soon.
