For a while now, I have been wondering about the moral responsibility of people like us (see here and here), , who work in the tech industry here in the Bay Area for human rights abuses enabled by our products.

Here’s the first real effort I have seen to put some legal and real shape to the concerns:

Yahoo! sued over torture of Chinese dissident Chinese political prisoner sues Yahoo! in a US federal court in what is believed to be first case of its kind Rhys Blakely A Chinese political prisoner sued Yahoo! in a US federal court, accusing the internet company of helping the Chinese government torture him by providing information that led to his arrest. The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, is believed to be the first of its kind made against an American internet company. More here….

One of the few stories I have noticed before in this regard was:

Gag Orders
Is the work of Cisco Systems and other high-tech companies helping China to crack down on dissent?
By DK Sweet
EARLIER this year, on CNBC, business news junkies were treated to another superlative on-camera performance by one of America’s foremost business superstars. Donald Trump may best personify the cheesy pop-culture idea of a celebrity businessman, but to the stockholder class, Cisco Systems’ John Chambers is the Real Deal. Compare the income, size, growth and influence of international Internet infrastructure colossus Cisco to The Donald’s twice-bankrupt real estate empire and Trump might as well be Chambers’ pool boy. More here…

For this audience, it would be interesting to ask if anyone here has thought or would think about what our moral responsibility as Muslims is in this regard.

Technorati tags applicable to this post: Technology and Society – Yahoo! – Torture – Human Rights