Thermo Fisher stops selling forensic technology in Tibet – January 5, 2024 at 8:32 am

Thermo Fisher Scientific has committed to stop selling forensic technology and equipment in Tibet that can be used to identify people, a company spokesman said.

The American company demonstrated a special technology to identify people in Tibet, a region of about 4 million people in western China, which a spokesman told Reuters is used, among other things, to track down criminals.

It added that the sales were “consistent with routine forensic investigations in an area of ​​this size,” but “due to a number of factors, we made the decision in mid-2023 to discontinue sales of HID products in this area.”

China took control of Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation” that helped free the remote Himalayan region from its “feudal” past. Since then, China has often been accused of suppressing religious and cultural freedoms in the Buddhist-majority region. Beijing rejects this accusation.

The spokesman declined to explain the reasons for his decision, which follows a similar announcement in 2019 to stop the sale of genetic sequencing equipment in another region of China, Xinjiang.

A report issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2022 concluded that China's detention of Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity, something the country has strongly denied. Human rights groups and media have also documented how authorities in Xinjiang have built a database of Uyghur DNA, which the authorities have denied.

Thermo Fisher's recent high-profile restrictions on sales in China, first reported by Axios, have been welcomed by some shareholders. They noted that there may be a risk that law enforcement agencies could commit human rights violations when using this technology.

One of them, Azzad Asset Management, wrote in a December 26 letter to Thermo Fisher that it had withdrawn its human rights shareholder proposal after the US company said it would stop selling HID products in Tibet and would stop on December 31, 2023. According to a copy seen by Reuters.

The letter, signed by Thermo Fisher vice president and secretary Julia Chen, said the company would conduct similar “checks” as it did when it stopped selling some products in Xinjiang.

Azad Asset Management did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. A Thermo Fisher spokeswoman declined to comment on the letter and explain the reason for the delay between the decision to halt sales in mid-2023 and waiting until December 31 for the ban.

China's State Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Andrew Silver; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)