A group of fourteen human rights organisations speaks in an open letter to Google against the plan to publish a censored search engine in China.
The letter was signed by, among others, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and organisations that focus on the protection of privacy and journalists.
In early August, the American news site The Intercept announced that Google has plans to publish a search engine in China. In the search engine, results about, for example, religion and democracy would be censored.
“The Chinese government is guilty of violations of the rights to freedom of expression and privacy,” write human rights organisations. “By responding to the oppression of the Chinese authorities, Google is actively contributing to this oppression for millions of Internet users in China.”
Google withdrew from China with its search engine in 2010, partly because of attacks on users of its email service Gmail and other attempts by the Chinese government to restrict freedom of expression online.
“If Google’s point of view has changed since then, it must be publicly made known,” write human rights organisations. The group wants the company to explain in that case how the decision “can be reconciled with its responsibility of international humanitarian law and its company values.”
Also, Google politicians and employees of Google want more clarity about the search engine, but Google has so far not publicly acknowledged to the plans.