"Surveillance technologies 'Made in Europe': Regulation needed to prevent human rights abuses", 1 Dec 2014

On the eve of the Wassenaar December Plenary, where the 41 Governments that compose the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies will be meeting, and as thousands gather in Geneva for...the UN Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, FIDH releases a position paper : "Surveillance Technologies « Made in Europe » : Regulation Needed to Prevent Human Rights Abuses", calling on the EU and the international community to effectively regulate the export of surveillance technologies used by repressive regimes to commit human rights violations.  The Amesys case and other recent judicial proceedings and media coverage of alleged implication of ICT companies in the selling of surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes have recently raised concerns over the growing global trend of the use by governments of sophisticated technological equipment and programmes to systematically persecute human rights defenders, dissidents, and political opponents. Such surveillance tools are being used as means of repression in many countries, such as Bahrain, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Syria and Turkmenistan.