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China slammed for jailing Internet users
(CNN) -- Human rights watchdog Amnesty International says a growing number of Chinese citizens are being arrested, tortured and could even face execution for using the Internet as a tool of peaceful political expression. In a report released Wednesday, Amnesty said that at least 33 people had been jailed by the Chinese authorities for online subversion -- a group it said was quickly becoming a new class of prisoner. "Everyone detained purely for peacefully publishing their views or other information on the Internet or for accessing certain Websites are prisoners of conscience," the group said. "They should be released immediately and unconditionally." In a wide-ranging report on Internet control in China, Amnesty also said several American companies were helping authorities monitor online activity through sales of software and other observation equipment. "As China's role as an economic and trading partner grows, multinational companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their technology is not used to violate fundamental human rights," the group's report said. In all Amnesty said it had collected documentation on 33 cases of people detained or imprisoned for offences related to their use of the Internet. The group said that among those jailed was former police officer Li Dawei, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for downloading articles from pro-democracy Websites. It said two of those detained for Internet-related offenses, both of whom were members of the outlawed Falun Gong movement, died in custody -- apparently as a result of police torture or ill-treatment. Rule of lawAsked about the report at a regular press briefing China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said he had not seen the document, but added: "The Amnesty International organization in the past has often issued statements with no basis whatsoever." "China is country ruled by law," he said. "All people must abide by the laws and regulations."
The number of Chinese Internet users is second only to that of the United States, with some 45.9 million Chinese thought to be regularly online. However, that figure still represents only a tiny proportion of the overall Chinese population. The Amnesty report is the first time the rights group has pulled together a comprehensive report on what it says are documented abuses of human rights related to the Internet. China has been keen to encourage growth of the Internet as a business tool, but has put in place rigid controls to prevent it being used as a political forum: • All Internet Service Providers operating in China are state-owned with access to Websites strictly monitored by a special Internet police service staffed, according to Amnesty, by some 30,000 officers. • Many search-engines, media, and political sites are blocked outright, along with those such as pornographic sites deemed socially undesirable. • Internet cafes must register with authorities and install special monitoring software to keep tabs on usage. • Content providers operating in China, including the Chinese arm of Yahoo, have been obliged to sign up to a sweeping self-censorship agreement taking responsibility for any political content posted on their Websites. Sweeping powersOn top of that, authorities have been given sweeping powers to detain anyone considered to be using the Internet to threaten state security, Amnesty says. "Internet users are increasingly caught in a tight web of rules restricting their fundamental human rights," the Amnesty report said. "Anyone surfing the Internet could potentially be at risk of arbitrary detention and imprisonment," it added. In extreme cases, the group said, under Chinese law anyone publishing on the Internet information deemed by authorities to be a state secret could even be sentenced to death. However, the report concluded that the continued growth of the Web would eventually only serve to increase pressure for improved human rights in China. "As the importance of the Internet grows," the report said, "so too will the millions of users and the demands of those seeking justice and respect for human rights in China."
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Anyone surfing the Internet could potentially be at risk of arbitrary detention and imprisonment
