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As part of the UN Human Rights Day, Washington has enacted around 20 sanctions against officials and entities from eight countries including China, Burma, North Korea and Bangladesh for human rights abuses. human rights.
As part of the UN Human Rights Day, the United States launched a round of sanctions on Friday, December 10. They bring against 15 officials and 10 entities in eight countries, ranging from a Chinese facial recognition company to the giant North Korean animation studio SEK.
Supported by the United Kingdom and Canada, these sanctions target officials accused of human rights violations during the repression of demonstrations in Burma, the mass detention of Uyghur Muslims or the violence of the army in Bangladesh under the guise of the fight against drugs.
“Our actions today, especially those in partnership with the UK and Canada, will send a message that global democracies will act against those who abuse state power to inflict pain and repression,” said the US Treasury Department. in a press release.
Among the top officials targeted, Erken Tuniyaz, president of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region (northwest), and his predecessor Shohrat Zakir are targeted for the detention of “more than a million Uyghurs and members of other minorities predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, ”the ministry said.
A Chinese facial recognition application
Washington is also sanctioning the company SenseTime, already placed on the American blacklist since 2019, which notably designs facial recognition applications that can be used for crowd monitoring and identity verification.
This Chinese company has, according to the Treasury, “put forward its ability to identify Uyghurs wearing beards, sunglasses and masks” to serve as police surveillance in Xinjiang. The company plans to enter the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 17, where it wants to raise 682 million euros.
Long hit by terrorist attacks, Xinjiang has been the subject of a severe takeover for several years.
Beijing disputes the figure of one million Uyghurs locked up, also put forward by associations for the defense of human rights, and speaks of vocational training centers intended to keep “trainees” away from radicalization.
A North Korean animation studio
Also targeted by the sanctions, the North Korean animation studios SEK have acquired an international reputation, notably contributing to global successes such as “The Lion King” and “Pocahontas”.
SEK “used an assortment of shell companies to evade North Korean government sanctions and deceive international financial institutions,” claims the Treasury.
The sanctions, the first against Pyongyang since Joe Biden came to power, also target North Korean Defense Minister Ri Yong Gil and the Central Office of Public Prosecutors.
Political repression in Burma and Bangladesh
In Burma, four regional leaders and three organizations linked to the Ministry of Defense are sanctioned for being “associated with the military regime’s attacks on democracy and their brutal repression”.
The US sanctions also target the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), an elite unit of the Bangladesh army, accused of political assassinations on the sidelines of anti-drug operations. “NGOs accuse the RAB and other law enforcement agencies in Bangladesh of being responsible for more than 600 disappearances since 2009, nearly 600 extrajudicial killings since 2018 and torture,” says the US Treasury. Some victims are said to be political opponents, journalists and human rights activists.
At the same time, the US State Department imposed sanctions against 122 officials from China, Uganda, Belarus, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Mexico “for their involvement in gross human rights violations.”
With AFP
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