Human Rights: Xinjiang
Debate between Karen Lee and Fiona Bruce(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate.
I shall not speak for long. I just want to say a little about Hikvision, one of the world’s biggest CCTV companies. It provides equipment for the massive prison camps in Xinjiang and has been used in Tibet to develop an extremely intrusive police and security apparatus. Hikvision uses facial recognition technology that can distinguish entire ethnic populations from the Chinese. It puts Tibetans and Uyghurs at serious risk. While the company is now subject to bans by the US and Australian Governments, Hikvision was revealed to be Britain’s biggest supplier of CCTV equipment in 2016.
Fiona Bruce
Does the hon. Lady share my concern that Christians are also being targeted? Pastors are being required to put facial recognition cameras on the front of pulpits, to make it possible to assess who is in the congregation.
Karen Lee
Absolutely. The point is well made and I share the hon. Lady’s concerns.
The Government of this country must speak up. They must make it clear that we will not accept the abuse of human rights, and the Chinese Government must and will be called out. The abuse of the Uyghurs is abhorrent, but abuse has been going on in Tibet for much longer.
Is the Minister aware whether any UK Government agencies purchase surveillance equipment from Hikvision? Are questions being raised about the security implications of its unfettered access to the UK? Does he share my concerns, and if he does not have answers to my questions, will he follow those matters up?