Microsoft in new China row
p2p news / p2pnet: Microsoft says it had nothing to do with the arrest of dissident Li Yuanlong, 45, a reporter with the Chinese daily Bijie Ribao.
He used the pseudonym Ye Lang (Night Wolf) to file articles on issues such as unemployment and rural poverty to US-based Chinese-language news portals, says the Times Online.
“Details of the indictment emerged today through the New York-based group Human Rights in China, five months after Li was detained,” says the story. “Li Jianqiang, his solicitor, said that he expected his client to appear in court this week on a charge of ‘incitement to subvert state power’.”
Microsoft killed the blog of another Chinese dissident, Zhao Jing, who’d used MSN online service in China to discuss a high-profile newspaper strike.
Following waves of criticism, ” Microsoft will remove access to blog content only when it receives a legally binding notice from the government indicating that the material violates local laws, or if the content violates MSN’s terms of use,” it said in a later statement.
But Bill and the Boyz are from being alone in being accused of colluding with the Chinese authorities.
Yahoo is said to have given Chinese prosecutors data involving ex-civil servant Li Zhi and journalist Shi Tao, who were jailed for eight- and 10-years respectively.
And Google admits it’s censoring news.
Also See:
Times Online - Hotmail drawn into China subversion case, March 6, 2006
high-profile - Microsoft’s new China rules, February 1, 2006
Chinese prosecutors - Yahoo: 2nd China ‘jail’ scandal, February 9, 2006
censoring news - Google admits censorship, January 28, 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.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.





p2pnet - rss feed: 