Hong Kong. Apple withdraws a controversial application after a Chinese warning

The US giant Apple yesterday withdrew an application that allowed the Hong Kong to locate the police on a map. The company had been accused by a Chinese media of supporting the pro-democracy movement, the app developer said.

The US giant Apple has withdrawn Thursday an urban transport application that allowed the Hong Kong to locate the police on a map, after being accused by a Chinese media to support the pro-democracy movement, announced the app developer.

In a statement, the designers of HongKongmap. live reported that Apple had told them that this app "endangered policing and the people of Hong Kong . "

"Serious harm to these citizens"

"The app shows the police positions and we checked with the Hong Kong Office of Cyber ​​Security and Technological Crime that the app was used to target the police and ambush them, threaten public safety, and criminals used it to harm people in areas where they knew there were no police, " Apple said, according to the developer.

"This use of your app has caused serious harm to these citizens. The former British colony has for four months been the scene of an unprecedented political crisis since its return to China in 1997, with demonstrations and almost daily actions to denounce a decline in freedoms and the growing interference of China in the affairs of the semi-autonomous region.

This mobilization has led to ever more violent and recurrent clashes between police and radical protesters, as well as numerous acts of vandalism targeted against companies accused of playing the game in Beijing.

On Wednesday, Apple found itself in People's Daily's viewfinder about the HKMap app. live. "Apple has chosen to approve the application [...] in Hong Kong," says the organ of the Communist Party in power. And to wonder in a vitriolic editorial: "Does Apple intend to be an accomplice of the rioters? "

The apple firm, because of major financial issues in mainland China, has always refrained from taking a position on sensitive issues, and generally complies with Beijing's requirements by removing from the country applications deemed inappropriate.

Hong Kong, territory returned to China in 1997, enjoys a special status, with broad autonomy and freedoms unknown in the rest of the country.

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