Town Crier (Canada): Jailed for surfing the net in China

March 27, 2003

(NC) - In Canada, we take it for granted that we can use the Internet freely and without fear. However, in China those who surf the World Wide Web put themselves at risk of detention, torture and even death.

A recent report by Amnesty International, a global human rights organization, details the cases of 33 Chinese citizens who have been imprisoned for their use of the Internet. Huang Qi, a computer engineer and the founder of China's first domestic human rights website, has been imprisoned for content on his site which was critical of the authorities, including an account by a Tiananmen Mother who accused police of beating her son to death during the 1989 pro-democracy protest.

Similarly, Li Dawai, a former police officer from Gansu Province, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for downloading articles from Chinese democracy websites abroad. Chen Quilan died while in custody after being detained for posting information on the Internet about the Falun Gong spiritual movement. Amnesty is calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained for their peaceful use of the Internet.

The arrests are part of a broader clampdown of Internet use in the country. Since the introduction of the Internet in China, millions of its citizens have been taking advantage of the technology, enabling a freedom of expression that was previously impossible. However, the Chinese authorities consider this freedom a threat. In recent months, thousands of Internet cafes have been closed and authorities have employed country-wide firewalls to deny access to more than half a million Web sites.

These recent actions follow a long established pattern of rights abuses in China. For years, Beijing has virtually ignored the basic human rights of its 1.3 billion citizens. Arbitrary detention and torture are widespread, peaceful Falun Gong practitioners are ruthlessly suppressed and thousands are put to death each year.

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