*** Democracies Online Newswire - http://www.e-democracy.org/do *** Two stories. From: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/chinanet000823.html Demanding Release Rights Group Urges China to Free Internet Dissident B E I J I N G, Aug. 23 — A foreign media watchdog group urged China today to free an Internet cafe operator arrested last week for posting criticism of the Communist Party. Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontieres urged China to free Jiang Shihua, detained Aug. 16 in the southwestern province of Sichuan. Jiang, a computer teacher who operated the Silicon Valley Internet Cafe in the Sichuan city of Nantong, was picked up by police for a series of critical articles he posted this month under the pen name “Shumin” (Common Citizen). Jiang faced charges of subverting state power, which could carry a 10-year jail sentence, RSF said in a statement. It said the group appealed in a letter to Justice Minister Gao Changli for Jiang’s immediate release. - clip - Earlier this month, the authorities shut down China’s first openly pro- democracy Web site based in China. The Shandong-based www.xinwenming.net (New Culture Forum) drew Beijing’s wrath for posting robust debate on democratization. - end clip - From: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/china_web000809.html The Battle Goes On With Chinese Crackdown on Web Sites, Dissidents Overseas Ready to Fight By Leela Jacinto Aug. 10 — Nearly a week after the Communist Party shut down the first China-based dissident Web site, the U.S.-based dissident community is licking its wounds — and vowing to continue the fight. But they also acknowledge that the Chinese government is increasingly sophisticated at controlling its citizens’ access to the Web. The shutdown of the New Culture Forum Web site, (www.xinwenming.net) run by veteran pro- democracy activists in Shandong province, for posting “reactionary content” is the latest in a series of suppressions by the Chinese government. “This is part of pattern of crackdowns,” says Judy Chen of Human Rights in China, a New York-based nongovernmental organization that monitors and promotes human rights in China. “But this case is significant because this Web site was being run by veteran dissidents from the 1970s. This is not just a crackdown on individual dissidents who are new to activism,” she says. In one of the most-publicized previous cases, Huang Qi, a man from Sichuan who published information on the Internet about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, faces trial for subversion. Huang is accused of “subverting state power” on his Web site,(http://www.6-4tianwang.com), which published information on human rights and corruption in China, including the June 4, 1989, massacre in which hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed. In March 1998, the government jailed Shanghai-based businessman Lin Hai for providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to an overseas electronic dissident newsletter. He was released in September last year, months before he would have completed his two-year sentence. ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - - ICQ: 13789183 *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To unsubscribe instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please forward this post to others and encourage *** *** them to subscribe to the free DO-WIRE service. ***
