Programs: Science and Policy
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AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program
View Alerts By > Case | Date | Country | Victim
AAAS Human Rights Action Network
| Date: | 11 February 1999 |
| Case Number: | ch9810_hai |
| Victim: | Lin Hai |
| Country: | China |
| Subject: | Engineer appeals conviction |
| Issues: | Freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; Freedom of association and assembly; Freedom of opinion and expression; Right to liberty and security of the person |
| Type of alert: | Update |
| Related alerts: | 19 August 1998; 10 December 1998; 28 January 1999; 25 May 2000 |
FACTS OF THE CASE:
Lin Hai, a Chinese software engineer sentenced to two years in prison for providing 30,000 Chinese e-mail addresses to a US-based, pro-democracy newsletter, has filed an appeal in the Shanghai People's High Court. Lin was arrested on 25 March 1998. He was charged with inciting to overthrow state power. His trial was conducted in secret in Shanghai on 4 December 1998.
Lin has admitted to supplying the addresses, but says he did so for commercial purposes and was not aware of their final use. Recent reports indicate that the People's Daily, the state-run daily newspaper, is itself publishing an e-mail address directory that it plans to sell for approximately US$90.
In China, the Internet can only be accessed through the state-owned service provider ChinaNet. The Chinese government, increasingly anxious about the use of the Internet for political purposes, has also ordered the closure of the country's most outspoken and popular Internet forum, Richtalk. The government has also recently ordered tighter controls at the growing number of cybercafes.
(Sources of information for this update include the BBC and the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.)
No further action is requested at this time.
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