Suit Against Tech Giant Shines Light on U.S. Complicity in Chinese Torture | RealClearPolitics
The wheels of justice often turn slowly, but when it comes to U.S. corporate complicity in China s record of religious persecution, human rights activists say they are finally picking up speed and moving in the right direction.
Top reformers in Washington, D.C., are heralding a recent twist in a 12-year legal battle that could have far-reaching implications for all U.S. companies that have sold surveillance or tracking technology to China.
Last month, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lawsuit accusing technology giant Cisco Systems Inc. and two former executives of assisting the Chinese government in identifying and targeting Falun Gong practitioners for arrests, torture, and execution could proceed to trial. The ruling largely reversed a lower district court s 2014 decision to dismiss the claims against Cisco and John Chambers, its former chief executive officer, and Fredy Cheung, the former vice president of its Chinese operations.
The three-judge appellate panel s July ruling did not determine the validity of the claims. Instead, it found that the Falun Gong practitioners had presented enough evidence for their case to proceed to trial in California where it was filed.
The legal turn of events is encouraging human rights advocates who have spent decades scrutinizing U.S. corporate involvement in China s repression of dissidents and religious minorities and its genocide against the Uyghur Muslim population.
Far too long, many elite leaders of America s most profitable corporations have aided and abetted the Chinese Communist Party s heinous human rights abuses, including genocide, Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told RealClearPolitics. Smith, who chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, has spent three decades in Washington fighting for human rights.
Deep research by our corporate law scholars is approaching the conclusion that it might be wrong for US companies to assist the PRC/CCP in torturing its enemies, or killing them. However, it’s complicated by the fact that the PRC/CCP is after religious sorts, and by the fact that US companies are making money. Stay tuned.