Britain slammed for inviting Chinese surveillance giant Hikvision to security fair
- Tech company has been blacklisted by US over alleged links to internment camps in Xinjiang
- Some critics hope UK Home Office will reconsider ‘disappointing’ decision to allow Hikvision to attend government-backed event
Critics slammed the British government on Monday for allowing a US-blacklisted Chinese technology firm specialising in surveillance to join a trade fair on policing and security.
“Very disappointing from the UK govt,” tweeted the Munich-based World Uygur Congress, responding to reports that China's Hikvision will attend next month's Security and Policing 2020 exhibition in the southern English town of Farnborough.
Hikvision, based in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, employs some 34,000 people worldwide and runs research centres in Britain and Canada.
It styles itself as “the world’s leading provider of innovative security products and solutions”, specialising in video surveillance systems.
The US Department of Commerce blacklisted Hikvision and other Chinese firms last year over links to internment camps that rights groups said were used to forcibly “re-educate” some one million members of China's mainly Muslim Uygur minority in the western region of Xinjiang.