The Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) reports that Doe v. Cisco Systems, Inc. is a case currently being litigated in the Northern District of California against Cisco Systems, Inc., a major American network technology corporation. The plaintiffs are a group of Falun Gong practitioners who have been subjected to serious human rights abuses in China through the use of China’s “Golden Shield” project. The Golden Shield is an unprecedented network security system used for the widespread censorship, surveillance, identification, tracking, apprehension, and torture of Chinese dissidents. Cisco has been the major provider of network security “solutions” in China since the late 1990’s and has played a central role in the design and implementation of the Golden Shield, despite widespread knowledge that its primary purpose is to facilitate the violent persecution of dissident groups. See full details

Specifically, the case alleges that Cisco customised technology for anti-Falun Gong purposes and that Cisco not only knew that its customizations would be used to repress Falun Gong practitioners, but actively marketed, sold, and supported the technologies toward that purpose. The case alleges that these customizations were actually used to identify and detain the plaintiffs.

Several years ago Cisco confirms in a presentation that the Golden Shield is helpful to the Chinese government to “Combat Falun Gong and Other Hostilities.”

The case alleges that Cisco has done far more than sell standard router technology and services to the Chinese communist regime, but that they helped to facilitate well-documented human rights violations against a religious minority.