Afp, Paris

Barcelona’s World Cup-winning footballer Antoine Griezmann said Thursday he was ending a commercial deal with Huawei over reports the Chinese telecoms giant was involved in the surveillance of Uighur Muslims.

Frenchman Griezmann said on Instagram that following “strong suspicions that Huawei has contributed to the development of a ‘Uighurs alert’ through the use of facial recognition software, I am immediately ending my partnership with the company.”

He called on Huawei to “not just deny these accusations but to take concrete action as quickly as possible to condemn this mass repression... and to use its influence to contribute to the respect of human rights”.

US-based surveillance research firm IPVM said in a report Tuesday that Huawei had been involved in testing facial recognition software in China that could send alerts to police when it recognised Uighur minorities’ faces. Huawei denied the claims.

Human Rights Watch says Uighurs in Xinjiang are being arrested after being reported by software which identifies suspicious behaviour.

China has come under intense international criticism over its policies in Xinjiang, where rights groups say as many as one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been held in internment camps.