Newsletter - April 2021
Announcements
We are delighted to announce that the U.S. Embassy to Canada has awarded MIGS a grant to organize a virtual speaker series titled “Countering Digital Authoritarianism”. MIGS will bring American and Canadian experts together to discuss how new technologies are being used to suppress human rights.
MIGS was selected to host a panel discussion titled “Spotlight on Digital Authoritarianism” at the 10th edition of RightsCon taking place June 7-11, 2021.
19 April 2021
MIGS is hosting its monthly “Democracy Drinks” in partnership with the Canadian International Council. Distinguished Canadian career diplomat, Jeremy Kinsman, will be this month’s guest.
Cubans Protest for Freedom of Hong Kong Political Prisoners
16 Apr 2021
A coalition of Latin American anti-communist activists, including Cuban dissidents who suffer regular repression on the island, organized a multi-continental set of peaceful assemblies Thursday calling for the freedom of 47 pro-democracy activists arrested in Hong Kong for allegedly violating an illegal “national security” law.
Pro-democracy voices in Cuba, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, the United States, Uruguay, and Mexico have vowed to join the campaign, which organizers have branded #Free47 in honor of those imprisoned.
The Chinese Communist Party, through its National People’s Congress, passed a law in May 2020 requiring minimum prison sentences of ten years in prison for individuals in Hong Kong found guilty of four crimes: “secession,” “terrorism,” “incitement of foreign interference,” and “subversion of state power.” Under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy that legally
The suit accuses Spain-based Inditex (whose brands include Zara, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull and Bear and Stradivarius), France-based SMCP (comprised of Parisian brands, Sandro, Maje, Claudie Pierlot and De Fursac), U.S.-based footwear company Skechers, and the U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese fashion retailer Uniqlo, of being accomplices in serious crimes, including concealment of the crime of forced labor, the crime of organized human trafficking, the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity.
The plaintiffs are asking the French judiciary to rule on the possible criminal liability of the companies. The stated aim is to end impunity for the brands, which are accused of offloading on their subcontractors their responsibility for human rights.
Companies are being pressured to scrub from their websites language about corporate policies on human rights, reverse decisions to stop buying cotton produced in Xinjian, and remove maps that depict Taiwan as an independent country.
In October 2020, the Geneva-based Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an influential non-profit group that promotes sustainable cotton production, suspended licensing of Xinjiang cotton, citing allegations and increasing risks of forced labor. The statement has since been scrubbed from the BCI website, and, disturbingly, also is not accessible on the Internet Archive.
In March 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, in a report, Uyghurs for Sale, revealed that Uyghurs were working in factories under conditions of forced labor that are in the supply chains of more than 80 well-known global brands in the clothing, automotive and technology sectors.
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Western companies are being forced to choose between supporting human rights and profits from China, caught up in a battle the U.S. and its allies are waging with Beijing over its persecution of Uyghur Muslims.
As China comes under scrutiny ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, human rights activists are urging companies to take a stand over the repression of Uyghurs, which the U.S. this week formally declared was “genocide.”
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