Responding to reports that Google is planning to shut down Project Dragonfly, its controversial censored search app for China, Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:

“Media reports that Google is shelving Dragonfly follow intense criticism of the project from human rights groups and Google’s own staff. 

“We would welcome a decision by Google to drop Dragonfly and abandon its plans to cooperate in large-scale censorship and surveillance by the Chinese government.

“Going ahead with Project Dragonfly would represent a massive capitulation on human rights by one of the world’s most powerful companies.

“It’s worrying that these reports suggest that Project Dragonfly has been shelved due to discrepancies over internal process, rather than over human rights concerns.

“As Amnesty International and others set out in a letter to Sundar Pichai last week, threats to the rights to freedom of expression and privacy for millions of people in China should have never seen this project come into being.  

“We once again call on Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai to clear up any speculation and publicly state that his company will refrain from developing censored search products and drop Dragonfly with immediate effect.”