On 11 January 2016, ARTICLE 19 joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Privacy International in submitting an amicus brief to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Doe v. Cisco Systems Inc case. The case is seeking to hold Cisco Systems accountable for aiding in human rights abuses by building the Chinese government a system that Cisco officials knew was intended to identify—and facilitate the capture and torture of—members of the Falun Gong religious minority.
We support the plaintiff’s allegation that Cisco understood that the “Golden Shield” system (also known as The Great Firewall), which it custom-built for China, was an essential component of the government’s program of persecution against the Falun Gong—persecution that included online spying and tracking, detention, and torture.
In Doe v. Cisco Systems Inc., Falun Gong victims and their families sued Cisco under a law known as the Alien Tort Statute, which allows noncitizens to bring claims in U.S. federal court for violations of human rights laws. A federal judge dismissed the case, saying the plaintiffs didn’t offer enough support for their claim that Cisco knew the customized features of the Golden Shield enabling the identification and apprehension of Falun Gong practitioners specifically would ultimately lead to torture.
The Golden Shield system included a library of Falun Gong Internet activity enabling the Chinese government to identify Falun Gong members online, according to the lawsuit. The case also contains strong evidence that Cisco created systems for storing and sharing information about “forced conversion”—i.e. torture—sessions for use as training tools. The cooperation was also documented in internal marketing literature, where a Cisco engineer described the company’s commitment to China’s security objectives, including the “douzheng” of Falun Gong practitioners. Douzheng is a term describing abuse campaigns against disfavored groups comprising of persecution and torture.
The amicus is asking the Ninth Circuit to recognize that victims of such abuses can seek to hold accomplices like Cisco accountable for their role in persecutions by the Chinese Government.