US firms named in Amnesty report
Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Websense and Sun Microsystems are among companies, “which have reportedly provided technology which has been used to censor and control the use of the Internet in China,” says a new Amnesty International report.
“Amnesty International fears that by selling such technology the companies did not give adequate consideration to the human rights implications of their investments,” the organization states here, going on:
“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.”
Nor is this a one-off charge.
An Amnesty report last year named the same five companies as providing China with the technology to, “help it shift from filtering content at the international gateway level to filtering content of individual computers, in homes, Internet cafes, universities and businesses”.
There are now almost 80 million people online in China, making it second only to the US in terms of the number of Internet users, says the government funded China Internet Network Information Centre.
In 1997 only 620,000 users were on record. By the end of December, the number had rocketted to 79.5 million, says CNNIC in its 13th semi-annual report.
But there’s also been a “dramatic rise” in the number of Net users in China who’ve been thrown into jail for expressing opinions on the Internet or downloading banned information from the Web, says Amnesty International. Officials know of 54 people who’ve been detained or sentenced for such activities, representing a 60% increase on November 2002, says the group.
And the figure doesn’t include an “unknown number of people remain in detention for disseminating information about the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) over the Internet,” the group says in a new report.
Net users 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 ‘rumours 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.
“Most have been charged with ’subversion’ or ‘endangering state security’ – criminal charges which have resulted in prison sentences of between 2-12 years, says the report, going on that China is said to have the most extensive censorship of the Internet of any country in the world, and:
“Over the past year, there has been a growing trend towards assigning greater responsibilities of surveillance and monitoring to a variety of companies in China such as Internet Cafes, Information Service Providers (ISPs) and other enterprises.
“Nevertheless, Internet activism appears to be growing in China as fast as the controls are tightened. Over the last year, there have been signs of Internet users acting increasingly in solidarity with one another, in particular by expressing support for each other online. Such expressions of solidarity have proved dangerous as a growing number of people have been detained on the basis of such postings.”
One of those detained, but recently released, was Liu Di, a psychology student from Beijing who used the online pseudonym, “stainless steel mouse”. She was held for over a year without access to her family after she posted messages in an Internet chatroom which were critical of the government and which called for the release of another Internet activist, Huang Qi. http://p2pnet.net/story/267
She was released in November 2003 following widespread public concern about her detention and it was later announced that she would not face formal charges.
“Almost 3,000 Internet users, based mainly in China, had signed petitions calling for her release,” says the group. “At least five were later arrested; four of them, Cai Lujun, Luo Changfu, Du Daobin and Kong Youping, reportedly remain in detention.”
Amnesty International’s report contains five appeals on behalf of eight individuals, including Huang Qi, a computer engineer from Sichuan, who set up his own website.
“He was detained on 3 June 2000 after several Chinese dissidents abroad posted articles on his website on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the crackdown against the 1989 pro-democracy protests,” the report adds.
“Three years after his arrest he was sentenced to five years’imprisonment after an unfair trial. He has reportedly been badly beaten by prison guards and is now in poor health suffering.”
