Barcelona’s Griezmann ends Huawei contract over Uighur surveillance

Barcelona’s French forward Antoine Griezmann at the Luz stadium in Lisbon on the eve of the UEFA Champions League quarter-final between FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich, August 13, 2020. (AFP)

• Griezmann said he was ending his sponsorship contract with Huawei over reports the Chinese telecoms giant was involved in the surveillance of Uighur Muslims
• Griezmann: Following strong suspicions that Huawei has contributed to the development of a ‘Uighurs alert,’ I am immediately ending my partnership with the company

PARIS: Barcelona’s World Cup-winning footballer Antoine Griezmann said Thursday he was ending his sponsorship contract with Huawei over reports the Chinese telecoms giant was involved in the surveillance of Uighur Muslims.
Frenchman Griezmann said on Instagram: “Following strong suspicions that Huawei has contributed to the development of a ‘Uighurs alert’ through the use of facial recognition software, I am immediately ending my partnership with the company.”
US-based surveillance research firm IPVM said in a report Tuesday that Huawei had been involved in testing facial recognition software in China that could send alerts to police when it recognized Uighur minorities’ faces.
China has come under intense international criticism over its policies in the resource-rich Xinjiang territory, where rights groups say as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been held in internment camps.
China defends the camps as vocational training centers aimed at stamping out terrorism and improving employment opportunities.
Griezmann, a forward who was one of the leading members of the France team that won the 2018 World Cup in Russia, has been a Huawei brand ambassador since 2017.