World News | Huawei Invites Griezmann to Talk After He Cut Ties

Beijing, Dec 14 (AP) Chinese tech giant Huawei wants to talk to French soccer player Antoine Griezmann about its human rights record.

The Barcelona forward had promoted Huawei's smartphones in advertisements but cut ties last week because of “strong suspicions” the company had tested facial recognition software intended to help China's surveillance of the mostly Muslim minority Uighurs.

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Huawei responded by inviting Griezmann to talk and learn about its work “at the highest level, inside the company” to address human rights, equality and discrimination.

“Huawei opposes discrimination of all types, including the use of technology to carry out ethnic discrimination,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “We do not develop or sell systems that identify people by their ethnic group, and we do not condone the use of our technologies to discriminate against or oppress members of any community.”

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Griezmann's announcement followed media reports that Huawei had tested software that could help China track and repress Uighurs. “Following strong suspicions that the Huawei company has contributed to the development of a 'Uighur alert' thanks to facial recognition software, I am announcing the immediate termination of my partnership with the company,” Griezmann wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)