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Beijing [China]December 27 (ANI): China is launching two extraordinary population analysis campaigns, which have drawn global backlash from human rights groups and political leaders around the world, Tibet Press reported.
One campaign involved mass scanning of the irises of people in Qinghai province, and the other involved mass blood sampling of Tibetans for DNA analysis, the report said.
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“On the surface, these campaigns might look like any other public health-related project common to most countries. But China’s questionable history of treating its occupied colonies makes it stink,” Tibet News reported.
Earlier this month, a group of lawmakers from 15 legislatures around the world called on their respective governments to investigate and suspend business activities with companies that provide technology to the Chinese government for biometric surveillance in the Uyghur region, Tibet and elsewhere in China.
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“We, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition of China (IPAC), write to express our deep concern over the use of mass DNA collection by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to intensify surveillance of ethnic minorities, particularly in the Tibetan and Uyghur regions,” the two said in a joint letter.
IPAC is an international, bipartisan coalition of parliamentarians from democracies focused on relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The letter was signed by the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition and includes MEP Anna Fotyga, Australian Senator Claire Chandler, Canadian MP Arif Virani, Irish Senator Michael McDowell, MP Simon O’Connor from New Zealand and Lord James MP from the UK Bethell. U.K.
Reports from Human Rights Watch and other groups indicate that Chinese authorities have conducted a large-scale DNA collection program in the TAR since June 2016, covering one-third of the total Tibetan population, including many children.
According to IPAC, investigations have revealed that at least one US company, Thermo Fisher, supplied DNA analysis tools to police in the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In a statement, IPAC said the large-scale DNA collection operations in Tibet and Xinjiang constituted gross interference with privacy and human rights and were a form of social control against the Tibetan people, who were already subject to intense state surveillance and surveillance. inhibition.
Lawmakers are asking their governments to take action to investigate the matter further and to suspend business activities with BGI Group and Thermo Fisher.
“Beijing’s large-scale DNA collection constitutes an unacceptable interference with privacy and human rights,” said IPAC EU member Engin Eroglu MEP.
Eroglu added: “I call on national and European authorities to take immediate action to investigate and suspend the activities of any companies involved in the collection of DNA in China.” (Ani)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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