AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

FACTS OF THE CASE:

Lin Hai, a software engineer in Shanghai, was arrested in July 1998 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." 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.

Chinese physicist and dissident Wang Youcai was arrested on July 22, along with a labor rights activist, for trying to organize an opposition party. Wang's arrest was followed by that of seven others on 12 August 1998. The seven were part of a group of forty dissidents who requested permission to hold a demonstration in Changsha, in southern China, to protest Wang's arrest.

The arrests of Lin Hai and Wang Youcai constitute serious violations of international human rights standards enumerated in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights, which was adopted without opposition by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1998. They include:

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person (Article 3);
• no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9);
• everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression (Article 19); and
• everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20).

(Sources of information on this case include the Associated Press and Human Rights in China)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send telexes, telegrams, faxes, or airmail letters:

• Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Lin Hai and Wang Youcai on the grounds that they were arrested solely for exercising their internationally recognized rights; and
• urging the Chinese government to release those arrested for merely requesting official permission to hold a demonstration.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Zhu Rongji
Premier of the People's Republic of China
9 Xihuangchenggenbeijie
Beijingshi 100032
People's Republic of China
[Telexes: 210070 FMPRC CN -or- 22478 MFERT CN]
[Faxes: + 86 1 512 5810 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)]
Salutation: Your Excellency

Xiao Yang Buzhang
Minister of Justice
Sifabu
Xiaguangli
Beijingshi 1100016
People's Republic of China
Salutation: Your Excellency

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