Chinese Company That Surveils Uyghurs Has Major Role in Beijing Olympics

A Chinese company sanctioned by the United States for helping the government surveil Uyghurs is a major sponsor of the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

iFlytek is the exclusive supplier of automated translation software for the upcoming Winter Olympics. The Chinese government uses the company’s technology to surveil Chinese Uyghurs and other persecuted groups. The Commerce Department sanctioned iFlytek along with other Chinese artificial intelligence firms in 2019 for their role in “human rights violations and abuses in the implementation of China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R., Idaho), the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called iFlytek’s involvement in the Olympics “truly shameful.”

“The International Olympic Committee, which claims to ‘recognize and uphold human rights,’ is allowing a Chinese state-sponsored company that aids the Chinese government’s atrocious human rights abuses against the Uyghurs to sponsor the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee,” Risch told the Washington Free Beacon. “This just goes to show that the IOC values profit and its relationship with Beijing over all else.”

The Beijing Olympics have drawn international scrutiny over Chinese human rights abuses. The United States announced a diplomatic boycott of the games in response to the country’s genocide of its Uyghur Muslim population. China this week threatened that Olympic athletes whose speech violates the “Olympic spirit” will be met with “certain punishment.” – READ MORE