China: OECD Contact Point complaint filed against UBS over business relationship with Hikvision, company which enables mass surveillance of Uyghurs
The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) announced in late June that it was filing a complaint with the Swiss National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines against the Swiss bank UBS, which, according to STP claims, maintains a business relationship with the Chinese company Hikvision, the world’s largest developer and manufacturer of surveillance technologies. Hikvision allegedly plays a central role in the mass surveillance of the Uyghurs in the Chinese province of Xinjiang. STP says that although the devastating human rights situation in the region has been known for years and Hikvision has been blacklisted by the US government since Autumn 2019, their research shows that UBS still maintains financial ties with the technology company. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reached out to UBS for a response - their full response is below.