Human rights groups filed a complaint in Paris on Wednesday to urge the judiciary to probe the alleged involvement of French firm Qosmos in supplying Syria's regime with surveillance equipment.
While France condemns President Bashar Al-Assad's violent crackdown, it is vital that full information be released "on the involvement of French companies in supplying surveillance equipment to the Syrian regime," said Patrick Baudouin of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).
The FIDH and the Human Rights League (LDH) said in a statement that they had jointly filed the complaint with the Paris prosecutor. "Western companies must know that they cannot sell this type of equipment to authoritarian regimes without being held accountable," said Michel Tubiana of the LDH.
Qosmos's website says its core expertise is in "technology that creates an information layer in communications networks, enabling detailed, real-time visibility into all IP (Internet Protocol) traffic as it crosses networks". Benoit Chabert, a lawyer for the firm, told AFP that Qosmos had not yet seen the complaint filed against it but that it had been involved in no wrong-doing.
French authorities opened a probe in May into the activities of Amesys, another French firm, after the FIDH and LDH in a suit accused it of providing surveillance equipment to Libya's now dead strongman Mummar Qadhafi. The equipment, the groups said, was aimed at targeting "opponents, arresting them and putting them in prison, where they were tortured".