Demark’s largest IT company exports arms to the UAE despite ban

Although Denmark officially passed a law to ban military exports to the UAE in 2018, it is revealed that the biggest Danish IT company is violating the law and exporting weapons to Abu Dhabi.

The Danish government said that the ban was due to the UAE’s involvement in Yemen’s war, where the Saudi-UAE coalition killed or starved thousands of children.

UAE and Saudi coalition brought wrath and destruction on the civil life in Yemen, leaving behind the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and more than 85,000 children dead.

Unfortunately, the UAE’s claim of disengagement in Yemen’s war was a hoax. For the past three years, Aby Dhabi has imported weaponry from European countries, especially from Denmark, where laws prohibit such practices.

Despite the Danish ban, the company furtively supplied and implemented SitaWare, an advanced command and control system to help the UAE military.

Danwatch has been investigating this case that is backed by TV2 and international research Centre Lighthouse reports.

Systematically continued rearmament of a warring country is exposed in accounts on social media, job advertisements, annual reports and freedom of information requests into systematic activities.

Human Rights Organisations are highly critical of Danish companies over their continuation of supplying military software to the UAE. It also highlighted that the UAE is using military software to perform serious war crimes in Yemen.

Patrick Wilcken, an Expert in Arms Control at Amnesty International, said, “There is a very high risk that equipment exported to the UAE would be used in serious violation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Yemen”.

As per the UN reports, the never-ending war in Yemen has already caused more than 230,000 deaths. The UN also suggests that Yemen’s way things are going is possibly heading towards the worst famine disaster.

The UAE is largely responsible for the Yemen disaster and hunger by keeping food and emergency aid far from the reach of the people.

After the Danish ban on military export to UAE, the company systematically developed a plan to use its British subsidiary as an alternative channel to provide military software to UAE.

Systematic is also known for providing Customised IT solutions such as electronic patient records and library lending systems to the public sector in Denmark.

Before the Danish export ban, the company reportedly exported military software products to the UAE directly from their head office in Aarhus.

However, In October 2018, the Danish ministry of foreign affairs imposed a proper ban on the Systematics direct exports to the UAE over the concern that it could come into use to exploit the ongoing war.

After three weeks of the Danish ban, a systematic subsidiary in the UK applied for an export permit to the United Arab Emirates in the UK.

This comes into view in several documents from the British and Danish authorities, to which Danwatch, TV2 and Lighthouse have access.

Systematic claims that they are not violating any rule by exporting the Software products to UAE through the United kingdom.