05/21/2003

The organisation Reporters Without Borders, which is dedicated to defending press freedom, has released a sobering 10-page report on mainland China's cyber police and the censorship and surveillance of internet forums, following a month-long study.

The report is timely, appearing almost simultaneously as news that a dissident webmaster, Huang Qi, has been sentenced to five years in prison on subversion charges for publishing critical essays on his website, which was created in 1998 as a bulletin board for information about missing people. Huang was arrested on June 4, 2000. The trial, which was closed, was held in August 2001. Without doubt, people in China are better informed today than at any previous period in history. The internet in particular has had the effect of linking people in mainland China not only to one another but to the outside world as well. However, while the government allows tens of millions of people to surf the net, it goes to great lengths to attempt to control what views they can express in their postings. Reporters Without Borders cited one estimate that around 30,000 people are "employed in this gigantic apparatus of monitoring and censorship".

"The Chinese forums use a system of filters that enable them to sort the messages into two categories: those containing banned words and the rest," the report says. "Messages in the first category are systematically blocked{hellip}. Site webmasters are supposed to check these blocked messages to establish whether they really need to be censored. But in fact it is very rare for a message that has been filtered out to be manually restored to the forum."

By sending messages to various internet forums, researchers were able to determine that certain pornographic or politically sensitive terms, such as "June 4" (the date of the Tiananmen Square crackdown), "human rights", "Taiwan independence" and " Falun Gong" are banned. Messages containing these words are automatically screened out.

Messages that do not contain banned words normally appear but, if their content is considered sensitive, they are soon removed. For example, a letter to propaganda chief Lu Yunshan on the closure of a magazine actually appeared on sina.com.cn, but was removed after one minute. According to the report, 60 per cent of messages sent in the course of the investigation appeared on the chat forums. However, only 55 per cent of controversial messages appeared and, of those, more than half were subsequently withdrawn. In other words, only 30 per cent of controversial messages were accepted by the sites.

Different websites also maintain somewhat different standards. One researcher attempted to post a message about coverage of the war in Iraq by the Chinese media and wondered whether Chinese journalists would be allowed to cover a major event in China with the same degree of freedom. The message appeared on yahoo, sohu and sina, but was rejected by xinhuanet, which is part of the official Xinhua agency.

Reporters Without Borders reported that its researchers succeeded in posting a message challenging the authorities' reasons for detaining internet user Liu Di and asked fellow users to defend freedom of speech. "It got through the filters because it contained no banned words," the report said, "and remained on view for two hours and 20 minutes, during which time more than 70 forum visitors were able to read it."

Liu Di is a 22-year-old psychology major at Beijing Normal University who was arrested last November after publishing several articles critical of restrictions on the internet, including an expression of sympathy for Huang Qi. According to Human Rights Watch, when the police first asked Huang Qi to go to the police station, he insisted they get a written summons. Before they returned with it, Huang sent out an e-mail to his friends, saying: "Goodbye to all of you - the police are about to arrest me. We still have a long road ahead of us. Thanks to all those who are furthering the cause of democracy in China." Huang is right. China still has a long road ahead of it. Technology has created a new category of political prisoners in China: internet dissidents.