Now let’s move to a country that does attempt to control its citizen’s use of the Internet...

In an explosion of Internet use in the country, over one million Chinese now use the technology. Although that is a small proportion of the population, it represents a well-educated and influential elite.

Although tanks crushed the Tianeman Square uprisings a decade ago, Chinese dissidents at home and abroad have been quick to adopt the Internet as a means of distributing information.

In July 1998 Lin Hai, a software engineer in Shanghai, was arrested for providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to U.S.-based Internet publications that promote democracy. He was accused of "inciting to overthrow state power." Mr. Lin's arrest has been described as evidence that the Chinese government is determined to prevent freedom of information on the Internet from posing a challenge to its leadership.

On August 19th, the AAAS Science & Human Rights Program Human Rights Action Network (AAASHRAN) sent an urgent action alert to the hundreds of its list’s subscribers, urging them to send telexes, telegrams, faxes, or airmail letters to officials calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Lin Hai on the grounds that he was arrested solely for exercising internationally recognized rights.