p2pnet - rss feed: Cyber-dissident Li Jianping jailed
p2pnet.net News:- China is by far the world’s largest prison for journalists and cyber-dissidents, with 72 such people incarcerated, says Reporters Without Border.
Now Li Jianping, a 40-year-old Chinese businessman and writer arrested in May last year after posting essays advocating greater online democracy and criticizing China’s Maoist system of government, has been jailed for three years.
He was charged with, “inciting subversion with an Internet essay praising pro-rights protests in Hong Kong,” says Reuters, quoting Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy.
In April, “Li Jianping put forward his own defense and said his actions of writing essays and posting them on the Internet did not constitute the crime of inciting the subversion of state power,” said his lawyer, Zhang Xingshui.
Li took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations for democratic change, says Reuters.
This marks the ninth such conviction this year.
On October 16, human rights activist and cyber-dissident Guo Qizhen was jailed for four years for “incitement to subversion,” says Reporters Without Borders.
“Guo, 49, was sentenced on 16 October 2006 for having posted articles on foreign-based websites denouncing the government’s crackdown on fundamental freedoms,” it says, adding:
“Among a large number of articles critical of the government which Guo posted on foreign-based sites, was one in which he said it was time for the Chinese people to “sound the knell of this dire regime. His arrest, on 12 May 2006, appeared to be linked to his joining a ‘rotating’ hunger strike started by lawyer Gao Zhisheng to protest at human rights violations in China.”
And as p2pnet posted on Tuesday, “The noose around the necks of Chinese bloggers has been tightened even further. China has ‘clarified’ rumours that it’s planning to force bloggers to use their real names.”
Meanwhile, “Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Cisco recently had to face a US congressional human-rights hearing to explain why they’re actively cooperating with China to help keep news and information from the country’s citizens. Amnesty International has also attacked the three, as well as Sun Microsystems and Nortel Networks, and to coincide with the launch of the international freedom of speech campaign, released a report about the role of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google in Net repression in China. Britain’s Committee on Foreign Affairs specifically named Google,Yahoo and Microsoft for actively working with China to police the Net.”
Also See:
Reuters - China jails Internet dissident for three year, October 26, 2006
own defense - China dissident ‘did no wrong’, April 17, 2006
Reporters Without Borders - Four-year jail sentence against cyber-dissident Guo Qizhen, October 17, 2006
noose around the necks - Chinese bloggers under threat, October 24, 2006
If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
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