AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

FACTS OF THE CASE:

On 20 January 1999, Lin Hai, a Chinese software engineer arrested on 25 March 1998, was sentenced to two years in prison for providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to a US-based, pro-democracy newsletter. Lin Hai was charged with "inciting to overthrow state power." His trial was conducted in secret in Shanghai on 4 December 1998.

According to the BBC World News, Lin Hai is the first person in China to be charged with using the Internet for the purpose of political subversion. Xu Hong, Lin Hai's wife, believes that the Chinese government wants to make an example of Lin Hai as a warning to other Internet users.

Lin Hai and Chinese physicist and dissident Wang Youcai were the subject of a major international e-mail appeal campaign launched by 13 free speech and scientific organizations on 10 December 1998. As of the writing of this alert, the e-mail campaign had generated more than 3,000 messages from 40 countries around the world.

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. The Chinese government has reportedly set up a special task force to monitor the Internet, and service providers must register all users with the government. Barriers have also been installed to block sites deemed subversive or pornographic.

The imprisonment of Lin Hai constitutes a serious violation of international human rights standards enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted without opposition by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. 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; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers (Article 19); and
• everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association (Article 20).

(Sources of information for this update include BBC World News and the Digital Freedom Network. Previous sources of information include Chinese VIP Reference, Human Rights in China, the New York Times, and the Associated Press.)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send e-mail or fax messages:

• Calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Lin Hai on the grounds that he was arrested solely for exercising his internationally recognized rights to freedom of expression and association; and
• urging Chinese officials to cease their interference with electronic communications.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Zhu Rongji
Premier of the People's Republic of China
fax: 86 1 512 5810 (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs)


People's Daily
No.2 jin tai xi lu
Beijing
fax: +8610 65092893


Guangming Daily
106 Yong An Road
Beijing
fax: +8610 63039387


Jiefang Daily (Shanghai)
No.300 Hankou Road
Shanghai
China
fax: +8621 63526517


China's Central TV
No.11, Fuxing Road
Beijing, bj 100859


Xinhua News Agency
fax: +8610 63071080


Human Rights of China
Bldg.22, Anyuan BeiLi, Asian Games Village
Beijing, Beijing 100029
fax: +86-10-64912961


State Development Planning Commission of China
58# SANLIHE Road
XICHENG District Beijing
China
fax: +8610 68558560

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