NO to internet censorship in China!
FREE internet writers!

On the occasion of the 'ITU Telecom World' hosted by China, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movements of China (hereafter the Alliance or the Hong Kong Alliance) appeals to Chinese and foreign participants of the exhibition and convention to demand that the Chinese government stops internet censorship and stops persecution of internet writers, and to protest against foreign internet service providers (ISPs) who care only about their commercial interest and hence collude with the Chinese communists in self-censorship and in disclosing to them the data of private users of their services.

According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the people have the right to the freedoms of expression and communication, the right to set up web sites and web pages and the right to post opinions on any internet forums.  The people are also entitled to browse any web sites and web pages, and exchange information through emails and internet forums.

Nevertheless, the Chinese communists have all along meticulously monitored the internet, filtered emails, infringed on the people's privacy, strangled internet freedom and deprived the people of their freedom of communication.  Furthermore, they have arrested and imprisoned dissidents who posted so called 'reactionary articles' on the internet.  They have even convicted people for subversion who read or downloaded information on the internet, seriously breaching their human rights.

China has over 30,000 internet policemen who monitor and control information on the internet.  More than 200,000 people are closely monitored on the net, including many writers, artists, journalists, lawyers, social workers and other well-known figures, many of whom have never even stepped into any sensitive political areas.  Whenever keywords like Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin or June 4th are mentioned, their emails in Hotmail, Gmail and the like either fail to be delivered or are shown to have bounced back.  At times, an email often takes as long as half an hour or even an hour to get delivered, longer than the time to write an article.  Half of the emails of the people monitored fail to deliver, and even if delivered, it is evident that they have been read.  Some 'reactionary' or 'sensitive' web pages, including those of the Alliance (www.alliance.org.hk) and the Falungong, are embargoed by the Chinese communists, becoming unavailable for internet users in mainland China.  When criticism of the Chinese government appears on internet forums, the forums are immediately closed.

Two years ago, the Chinese authorities began filtering personal email boxes in the various portal sites in China, like Sina, NetEase, Sohu, etc.  Just last year, the personal email boxes under multinational portals such as Yahoo China, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. also joined the official list of censored categories.  The spokesman of Yahoo China admitted, "The Ministry of Information Industry (the authority that overseas the internet in mainland China) launched its sanitization program early this year (the 'Sunny Green Internet Project') and required ISPs to comply.  In personal emails, forums, blogs, etc., sensitive information will be censored away if it appears."  Another ISP, Sina, also said that they had set up a special department to monitor the internet, to process 'abnormal emails that involve illegality or violence'.

Besides, foreign ISPs, abandoning commercial ethics for a position in the Chinese market, have been providing the Chinese government with personal data of their users, which is an infringement of their privacy.  Yahoo has been most blatant and enraging, for having disclosed to the security departments of mainland China the data of various internet writers, including (a) the IP address, the user name, the telephone number for internet connection, and the time of posting of a relevant article of Shi Tao, who posted the summary of a document by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre that laid down strict cautionary measures against activities commemorating the June 4th incident; (b) the registration data at Yahoo China of Wang Xiaoning, who posted various political articles expressing dissatisfaction of the CPC on the website of Yahoo China; (c) the records of the articles written by Li Zhi, a former government official in Dazhou city, Sichuan, who criticized the corruption of the Chinese government on the internet; and (d) the articles written by Jiang Lijun, the owner of a private enterprise in Liaoning, who advocated the overthrow of the CPC and the establishment of a Liberal Democratic Party.  In the end, Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning, Li Zhi and Jiang Lijun were sentenced to imprisonments of 10, 10, 8 and 4 years respectively.

Foreign ISPs have also engaged in self-censorship.  In the China version of MSN(http://cn.msn.com), the phrase "Part of the search results have been deleted" appears at the end of the page when 'sensitive' key words are searched.  Even if some search results appear, they miss the point.  For instance, for the key words "June 4th" (or 'Six Four' in Chinese) concerning Tiananmen, the search results show only the 64 boxes of the chess board, or the 6th and 4th level of university examination in China.  Sometimes, only the results of a one-sided position shows.  For example, the key word "Falungong" would yield search results of mostly webpages that criticize Falungong.  The big four of US internet companies, Microsoft, Yahoo, Sisco and Google have thrown the principle of freedom of speech down the drain by kowtowing to pressure from the Chinese government, colluding with them in internet censorship.

The Hong Kong Alliance urges the Central Government to put into effect the promised rights of the people to freedom of speech and access of information, to immediately release internet writers Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning, Li Zhi, Jiang Lijun, Kong Youping, Ning Xianhua, Li Dawai, Xu Wai, Jin Haike, Zhang Honghai, Li Jianping, Zhang Lin, Huang Jinqiu, Tao Haidong, etc.  The Hong Kong Alliance calls upon foreign ISPs not to seek profit unscrupulously, to stop colluding with the Chinese government and to protect the privacy of their internet users.

No to internet censorship!  Stop persecution of internet writers!

Free Shi Tao!  Free all jailed internet writers!