[DMCA-Activists] Amnesty Int'l: 2 Chinese Internet Users Executed

[Seth Johnson]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 09:22:29 -0500
From: R. A. Hettinga <address@hidden>
To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <address@hidden>,
address@hidden,
     address@hidden
Subject: Amnesty says two Chinese Internet users were
executed

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6422


Amnesty says two Chinese Internet users were executed

US firms "colluding" in State clamp down claim

By Mike Magee: Tuesday 26 November 2002, 19:05

HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATION Amnesty International issued a
warning today on its Web site that Internet users in
mainland China could be killed by the State for expressing
their opinion online.

Thirty three people were named as "prisoners of conscience"
today, for apparently doing little more than expressing
their opinions online.

Two "subversives" have already died in custody, it claimed.

And the statement, which it released today, also warns that
overseas companies were colluding in a crack down we first
reported last August.

The full report is here.

One paragraph states: "Foreign companies, including Websense
and Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks,
Microsoft have reportedly provided important technology
which helps the Chinese authorities censor the Internet.
Nortel Networks along with some other international firms
are reported to be providing China with the technology which
will help it shift from filtering content at the
international gateway level to filtering content of
individual computers, in homes, Internet cafes, universities
and businesses."

The report asked China - avowedly a police state - to
release anyone detained or jailed for using the Internet to
express their views or to share information.

American companies are helping China track down people that
the government wants to detain for "online subversion".

It has designated 33 people detained for using the Internet
as "prisoners of conscience".

Two people have already died in custody, the report said. AI
says that anyone surfing the Internet in China could be at
risk of "arbitrary detention and imprisonment".

There are around 60 million Internet users in mainland
China, with the numbers rising steadily.

-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: address@hidden>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation
<http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and
antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found
agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire'

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