(Reference Material) - The Asian Pacific Post: Why Is Nortel Helping China Jail Internet Users? (excerpted)
6-21-4 Businessman Cai Lujun, 35, will be in jail for the next two years because he
posted essays discussing problems affecting Chinese farmers on the internet. Zhao Chunying, 57, from Heilongjiang was found beaten to death in a Chinese
jail after being arrested for writing an account of how she was tortured during
a previous detention. Computer engineer Yang Zili, 31, and freelance writer Zhang Honghai, 30, were
sent to jail for eight years each for "subverting state power". They
had sent articles of political and social concerns via e-mail. Web essayist Du Daobin is more fortunate than the others. This month a Chinese court convicted him of subversion and gave him a three
year sentence. The sentence was suspended and he was allowed to go home and do
four years of probation, which means no more web commentaries calling for
greater democracy in Hong Kong. Human rights activists in Canada, U.S. and Europe say these people are among
an estimated 100 known Chinese internet users who have been arrested by China's
web police thanks to technology that has been financed with your tax dollars. If that is not bad enough, your tax dollars have also helped China to block
the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation website because it contains references to
rights and democracy. The Trudeau Foundation, which awards scholarships to human rights and social
justice students, has not had one Chinese internet user visit it over the past
year. Among the multinational corporations helping the communist regime block
websites and build the so called "Great Firewall of China" is Nortel
Networks, a frequent recipient of Ottawa's largesse - the latest of which is a
waiver on a $750 million Canadian taxpayer-backed financing agreement. Nortel's Tina Warren said the technology sold to China is no different than
what it sells elsewhere. It is "intended to enable citizens of the world to improve their access
to communications for the collective sharing of knowledge that can improve the
world around us," she said. "Nortel's position on this is criminal from a moral perspective..it is
absolutely scandalous," lawyer Clive Ansley, a Vancouver Island-based
expert on Chinese legal issues, told The Asian Pacific Post. "What this company is doing is basically telling China that we at Nortel
can help you track down activists and free speech advocates," said Ansley,
a former professor of Chinese studies and Chinese law in Canada, who was the
first foreign lawyer to open a law office in Shanghai. (1)[...] "The Liberal government believes that this process of engagement which
leads to millions of tax dollars going to China will help the communist regime
become more democratic and respect human rights. "That is like trying to teach a tiger to be a vegetarian," said
Ansley, who spent the last 20 years in China and Taiwan. "Ansley and other human right advocates, including Erping Zhang from the
Association for Asian Research and Harry Wu of the Laogai (China's prison work
camps) Research Foundation recently concluded a speaking tour of Denmark, Sweden
and Norway where they presented papers at parliaments and universities on
China's crackdown on dissidents. In a telephone interview with The Asian Pacific Post from New York, Erping
Zhang said the US $800-million Golden Shield project put all Chinese Internet surfers at
risk, as they are being monitored live by over 30,000 cyber cops. "China is the only country on earth that has crafted the so-called
"cyber crime", and at least over 100 cyber dissidents are now serving
either labor camps or jail terms in China," said Zhang. "This Golden Shield project developed by some Western IT companies
including Nortel will serve as a tool of suppression by Beijing to control the
Chinese people - this is not just a legal issue, but also a moral matter. "Would Western companies today help Nazi Germany or Saddam's regime with
similar technology to monitor their peoples? I wish to remind those foreign IT
companies like Nortel who are involved in constructing this Golden Shield
project: If you think that your contribution to this Golden Shield project is
harmless, why don't you give up your foreign passports and live like those
ordinary Chinese people in China? "How would you feel if China is doing this Golden Shield project in your
own homeland," he said. Zhang urged Canadian lawmakers to ban technology transfer that helps suppress
people of other countries. Darrel Stinson, the Conservative MP for Okanagan Shuswap said companies like
Nortel cannot just say their technology is neutral and not be responsible about
how it is used. (1) [...] Canadian researcher Greg Walton, whose ground-breaking work on China's Golden
Shield shed light on Nortel's connection to the sinister program said the
company's technology helps China track individual internet users at homes, in
cyber cafés and in universities and businesses. In a report published by the Montreal-based International Centre for Human
Rights and Democratic Development, Walton disclosed that Nortel's "Personal
Internet" suite program has greatly enhanced the ability of Internet
service providers to track the communications of almost half of China's
individual Internet users. He pointed out that Nortel's privacy statement for the Internet, which states
it will not sell, rent or share personal data with any other organization,
appears at odds with its work in China. Former Liberal cabinet minister Warren Allmand, president of the
International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, in a statement
following Walton's report said: "Many companies, including notably Nortel
Networks, until recently Canada's largest firm, are playing key roles in meeting
the security needs of the Chinese government." Other companies helping Beijing develop the Golden Shield include Sun
Microsystems and Cisco Systems. Amnesty International, whose website is blocked in China states that as of
January, 7 2004, it had recorded the names of 54 people who had been detained or
imprisoned for disseminating their beliefs or information through the Internet
ñ a 60 per cent increase as compared to figures recorded at the end of 2002.
Prison sentences ranged from two to 12 years Those detained for downloading information from the Internet, expressing
their opinions or circulating information on the Internet or by email include
students, political dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, workers, writers,
lawyers, teachers, civil servants, former police officers, engineers, and
businessmen. China has also ordered all 110,000 Internet cafes in the country to now use a
particular form of software that will control access to websites considered
harmful or subversive - including those of Amnesty itself, other international
human rights groups, news and non-governmental organizations, A study by Harvard University's Berkman Center on 204,012 distinct websites
said as many as many as one in 10 websites, are being deliberately blocked to
users in China. http://www.asianpacificpost.com/news/article/136.html
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