New Standard: Imprisonment on the Rise in China for Internet-Related Activities

February 2, 2004

Detentions or imprisonments in China for internet-related activities, including expressing opinions online or downloading information, rose 60 percent from November 2002 to January 2004, with 54 people detained or imprisoned. This increase doesn't include an unknown number of people detained for disseminating information about SARS over the Internet, according to a January 28 Amnesty International news release.

According to the news release, "China is said to have in place the most extensive censorship of the Internet of any country in the world." And, over the years, China has had the help of major American companies in developing an increasingly sophisticated censorship apparatus.

"The government of the People's Republic of China has a longstanding restricting the information to which citizens are exposed, and that which they may themselves publicly say," Jonathan Zittrain, Faculty Co-Director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and Benjamin Edelman, a fellow at the Center, wrote in a 2003 Harvard Law School study on the subject.

And whereas a few years ago China's censorship abilities were somewhat rudimentary, "these days China is all the more sophisticated in its very focused blocking," Edelman said "[Having developed] more focused methods of filtering, China can more tightly limit what its people view."

But China didn't develop its censorship software alone. According to the Amnesty news release, companies from the United States play a large role in providing the technology to the Chinese government. Most notable among the purported suppliers: Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Websense, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft.

Of the five companies, only Cisco Systems replied at any length on their censorship software dealings with the Chinese government. They pointed out that Cisco's role in global internet growth has been a significant one but that what customers do with that technology is the customer's business.

"While there is a range of functions that can be implemented in our network management products, our customers, not Cisco Systems, determine the specific uses for identical capabilities of these products," said Penny Bruce, China spokesperson for Cisco.

Human rights groups disagree, calling for greater responsibility to be taken up by the companies providing the technology.

"We urge all companies which have provided such technology to use their contacts and influence with the Chinese authorities to bring an end to restriction on freedom of expression and information on the Internet in China and to urge the release of all those detained for Internet-related offences in violation of their fundamental human rights," Amnesty International said in its news release.

Even with quality censorship and filtering technology, China has its hands full with a rapidly growing population of "netizens," or internet users. A report issued by the government in Beijing on January 15 put that number at 79.5 million -- up an amazing 34.5 percent from the year before.

With such a burgeoning Internet community, China is fearful of "negative" and "harmful" influences infiltrating the country via the World Wide Web.

"Rapid growth of globalized economy and information technology has a great and profound impact on the world cultural development," Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told US officials in December in Washington." It requires, more than ever before, close inter-governmental and non-governmental cooperation to promote the fine culture of every nation and defuse moral crises in the world."

But human rights groups -- and at least 3,000 Chinese who recently signed a petition for the release of Liu Di, who was imprisoned for posting messages critical of the government during an online chat room session, according to the Amnesty news release -- are fearful that such control will only lead to more arrests. Though Liu was recently released, at least five of the signatories have since been detained, and at least four remain in prison, Amnesty said.

According to the Zittrain and Edelman study, China's censorship focuses most heavily on eight areas: dissident and democracy sites, health sites, education sites, news sites, foreign government sites, Taiwanese and Tibetan sites, entertainment sites, and religion sites. The study found, for example, that over 60% of Tibet-related sites are blocked.

[...]

Similarly, the Zittrain/Edelman study found that almost 50% of all Taiwan-related sites were blocked, frustrating Taiwanese officials.

"It is not surprising for a totalitarian regime to block the free flow of information," a spokesman for the US based Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO), a group whose goal is to promote better understanding between Taiwan and the United States said." For years, communist China has tried every effort to block Taiwan from the international community."

"Even though I have long heard about China's blockade of the internet, I am in shock to learn the situation [involving internet-related arrests] is so severe," said John Chi of the TECO in New York City. "It is quite obvious that Communist China is afraid of the outcome of keeping free flow of information via the internet - a full-fledged democracy."

Those imprisoned or otherwise detained for internet activism in China have been sentenced to between two and twelve years in prison for "subversion" or "endangering state security" and include businessmen, students, civil servants, police officers, engineers, teachers, writers, and lawyers according to the Amnesty news release.

"They have been accused of various 'offences,' including signing online petitions, calling for reform and an end to corruption, planning to set up a pro-democracy party, publishing 'rumors about SARS,' communicating with groups abroad, opposing the persecution of the Falun Gong and calling for a review of the 1989 crackdown on the pro-democracy protests," Amnesty said.

"We consider them all to be prisoners of conscience and reiterate our calls to the Chinese authorities to release them immediately and unconditionally," Amnesty said.

"From our data, it appears that the set of sites blocked in China is by no means static," the Zittrain/Edelman study reports." Whoever maintains the lists is actively updating them, and certain general-interest high-profile sites whose content changes frequently appear to be blocked and unblocked as those changes are evaluated."

Source: http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=164