McCaul requests Biden sanction Chinese surveillance company for human rights violations

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) recently requested that President Joe Biden determine if a particular Chinese surveillance company has facilitated internationally recognized human rights violations, including against the minority Uyghur population of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Rep. McCaul, In his role as chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, joined the committee’s ranking member, U.S. Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), in requesting that Biden call for a determination and sanction authorization on Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd., according to a Feb. 28 letter the lawmakers sent to the president.

“These human rights violations include arbitrary and discriminatory imprisonment of ethnic Uyghurs and Muslim minorities, torture and ill-treatment, interrogations, forced sterilizations, and repression of cultural, linguistic, and religious expression,” Rep. McCaul and his colleague wrote. “Both Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have determined that these human rights violations constitute ‘genocide.’”

The lawmakers cited a 2022 report in which the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “authoritatively determined” that the PRC has committed serious human rights violations against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang.

“The U.S. government has taken enforcement actions against Hikvision for its complicity in these human right violations using multiple authorities,” Reps. McCaul and Meeks wrote. “The Department of Commerce designated Hikvision to its Entity List for its role in implementing the PRC’s ‘campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups’” in Xinjiang.

The letter gives the Biden administration 120 days to determine if Hikvision should be sanctioned pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act based on its track record in enabling internationally recognized human rights violations. 

“With this request, we call upon you to consider the information provided and any other credible sources of information to make a determination and authorize sanctions against Hikvision for its role in facilitating gross human rights violations against Uyghur and Muslim minorities in Xinjiang,” they wrote.