(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Chinese Minister of Public Security Jia Chunwang, RSF protested the arrest of Yang Zili, creator of the website www.lib.126.com. RSF asked the minister to guarantee Yang Zili’s release. RSF expressed its concern regarding the repression against web users and dissidents who use the Internet to inform and be informed […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Chinese Minister of Public Security Jia Chunwang, RSF protested the arrest of Yang Zili, creator of the website www.lib.126.com. RSF asked the minister to guarantee Yang Zili’s release. RSF expressed its concern regarding the repression against web users and dissidents who use the Internet to inform and be informed of the human rights situation in China. “While China escaped condemnation at the United Nations Human Rights Commission, this arrest and a new wave of repression remind us that China is still an enemy of the Internet and of freedom of expression,” affirmed RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard.
According to information gathered by RSF, Yang Zili was arrested on 13 March 2001 as he left his home. That same day, his wife Lu Kun was arrested. She was released forty-eight hours later. Lu Kun was interrogated by the police regarding her husband’s activities and obliged to sign a declaration that she would not reveal the arrest. Police also searched their home. Since 13 March, the police have not informed Lu Kun of the reasons for Yang Zili’s arrest or indicated to her his place of detention. In some of his articles published on the Internet, Yang Zili, 28, denounced repression against Falungong followers and the economic problems of Chinese peasants. He wrote in one poem: “Give the last deadly blow to the spectre of communism.”
At the beginning of April, the Chinese government decided to suspend the opening of new Internet cafés for three months. The authorities also announced that they would enforce control of existing cafés, and a new regulation was adopted to fight against “pornography,” “superstition” and “online games.” In 2000, the government also passed laws to prohibit “subversive content.” Since then, dissidents have been exposed to further repression by police units which oversee the Internet. Such special units were recently created in several provinces. On 18 April, dissident Chi Shouzhu was arrested at the Changchun railway station (Manchuria province, north-eastern China), while carrying pro-democracy articles printed from an overseas website.
In a report titled “Enemies of the Internet” (www.rsf.org), published in February, RSF wrote: “Over the past two years, the Chinese authorities have considerably changed their policy for controlling the Internet. The ‘Great Cyber Wall’ strategy, implemented in 1997 by the Ministry of Public Security and the State Prosecutor, was abandoned in favour of selective enforcement and control carried out by ISPs and site managers themselves. â¦Chinese web dissidents are considered to be real criminals, and run the risk of hefty prison sentences.”
Three web dissidents are currently jailed in China: Qi Yanchen, editor-in-chief of the online magazine “Consultations”, arrested on 2 September 1999 and sentenced to four years in jail (see IFEX alerts of 21 September, 13 July, 26 and 5 June, 17 and 3 March and 26 January 2000 and 3 September 1999); Huang Qi, creator of the website www.6-4tianwang.com, detained since 3 June 2000, whose trial was postponed (see IFEX alerts of 9 February and 18 January 2001, 13 July, 26 and 7 June 2000); and Jiang Shihua, teacher and owner of Silicon Valley Internet Café, jailed since 16 August 2000 and sentenced, last December, to two years in jail (see alerts of 14 March 2001 and 22 August 2000).
