Comments on: Iranians Boycotting Nokia Siemens, But Is It Justified? http://trueslant.com/justingardner/2009/07/24/iranians-boycotting-nokia-siemens-but-is-it-justified/ [Please go to 'Settings' to change your Tagline] Sat, 12 Nov 2011 01:21:45 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Michael Roston http://trueslant.com/justingardner/2009/07/24/iranians-boycotting-nokia-siemens-but-is-it-justified/comment-page-1/#comment-25 Michael Roston Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:30:32 +0000 http://trueslant.com/justingardner/?p=368#comment-25 This debate accesses some very difficult questions in international law. South African victims of apartheid have sued various US corporations in American courts alleging that goods they provided to the apartheid regime resulted in crimes against humanity. The rub, to me at least, ends up being how the firm marketed the equipment. So if IBM just sold a computer and software to the military in Johannesburg, and they didn't have any idea how it was going to be used, maybe how the computer was adapted to the military's uses might not be their fault. But if South Africa's military went to IBM and said, "Hey, we need some software to help us track dissidents, what do you got?" I think that's clearly complicity in human rights violations. So if Iran's intelligence service went to Scandinavia and said, "How can we shut down communications between our citizens and the outside world in a political crisis," and Nokia Siemens said, "Oh, this works great," I think they've got some virtual blood on their hands. This debate accesses some very difficult questions in international law. South African victims of apartheid have sued various US corporations in American courts alleging that goods they provided to the apartheid regime resulted in crimes against humanity. The rub, to me at least, ends up being how the firm marketed the equipment.

So if IBM just sold a computer and software to the military in Johannesburg, and they didn’t have any idea how it was going to be used, maybe how the computer was adapted to the military’s uses might not be their fault.

But if South Africa’s military went to IBM and said, “Hey, we need some software to help us track dissidents, what do you got?” I think that’s clearly complicity in human rights violations.

So if Iran’s intelligence service went to Scandinavia and said, “How can we shut down communications between our citizens and the outside world in a political crisis,” and Nokia Siemens said, “Oh, this works great,” I think they’ve got some virtual blood on their hands.

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