-------------------------------------------------------
* In October 1998, Qin Yongmin was taken in for questioning, and
police confiscated his computer and three fax machines.[23]
• On October 26, 1998, police detained the three leaders of the
China Development Union (Peng Ming, Gan Quan, and Chang Qing),
confiscating computers and documents from their head-quarters.
[24]
• CDP leader Wang Youcai was detained on November 2, 1998, and
formally charged on November 30, 1998. Wang was sentenced in
Hangzhou Intermediate Court on December 21, 1998, to 11 years
in jail for allegedly conspiring with foreign forces to overthrow
the Chinese state. The specific charges against him included
e-mailing 18 copies of the CDP constitution and declaration on
the party’s founding to dissidents and human-rights activists in
the United States and Hong Kong 25 and accepting $800 to buy a
computer.26 Officers from the Hangzhou Public Security Bureau
discovered the e-mail messages when they searched Wang’s
home and questioned him about the founding of the CDP in late
June 1998. 27 The timing of these events supports the argument
that PRC authorities rely primarily on traditional low-tech mea-sures—
in this case, a physical search of Wang’s residence follow-ing
his founding of the CDP—to uncover evidence of “sub-versive”
Internet use. Specifically, the date the authorities claim
to have uncovered Wang’s e-mailing is the same as that of the
raid on his apartment.
• In February 1999, Wang Ce, a prominent exiled democracy
activist who clandestinely returned to China in 1998, was sen-tenced
to four years in prison on charges of “abetting subver-sion”
by giving CDP co-founder Wang Youcai $1,000 to purchase
a computer.28
• In February 1999, Xu Wenli’s wife, He Xintong, demanded the re-turn
of some unlisted items among the 300 items seized from
their home during three police searches. The missing items
included two computers, two printers, two telex machines, a
photocopier, and numerous cassettes and CDs.29
• On June 19, 1999, 15 police stormed into Zhu Yufu’s home and
hauled him and another CDP member, Han Shen, away. The po-lice
searched his home for two hours, taking away a computer,
an address book, and numerous documents.30
• On June 29, 1999, Gao Hongmin, deputy chairman of the Beijing-Tianjin
branch of the CDP, was taken from his home by police,
who also removed his computer and documents.31
• In August 1999, the wife of Wu Yilong (Shan Chenfeng) report-edly
was detained. The authorities confiscated a computer, an
address book, a fax machine, books, and other items.32
• In September 1999, Qi Yanchen, an employee of the Hebei
branch of the China Agricultural Development Bank and a mem-ber
of the China Development Union (CDU), a banned pro-reform
intellectual group,33 was arrested for his involvement in a
variety of “subversive” online activities. These reportedly in-cluded
posting portions of his unpublished book, “China’s Col-lapse,”
on overseas Chinese-language BBS. The book explored
themes including social instability in China and warned that the
ruling CCP needed to enact political reform or risk turmoil.34 He
was also accused of publishing articles under the pseudonym “Ji
Li” in VIP Reference and of receiving copies of VIP Reference.35
According to other reports, his arrest may also have been related
to his involvement with Consultations, an environmentalist on-line
magazine associated with the CDU. Qi had been under po-lice
surveillance since 1998. At the time of his arrest, his com-puter,
fax machine, printer, books, manuscripts, and notes, as
well as copies of VIP Reference, were allegedly confiscated.36
• In November 1999, Zhejiang Province CDP members Wu Yilong,
Mao Qingxiang, Zhu Yufu, and Xu Guang received sentences of
11, 8, 7, and 5 years, respectively, on charges that included using
e-mail to communicate with “reactionary organizations abroad”
and posting CDP materials on overseas Chinese-language BBS.37
Authorities confiscated a computer belonging to one of the four
dissidents when they detained them earlier in the year.
• In March 2001, state security officers in Beijing detained Yang
Zili, a software engineer and outspoken critic of the CCP who
maintained a website called “Yang Zili’s Garden of Ideas.” They
also detained his wife, Lu Kun. The agents confiscated Yang’s
computer, books, and other items. Lu was subsequently released,
but Yang reportedly remains in detention.38
Finally, the authorities have a clear track record of arresting possible
dissidents for Internet-related offenses. The first person imprisoned
in the PRC for “subversive” use of the Internet was Lin Hai, a com-puter
software engineer and Internet entrepreneur from Shanghai,
who was charged with subversion and was sentenced to two years in
prison on January 20, 1999, for providing a total of 30,000 e-mail ad-dresses
to “overseas hostile publications.” Authorities charged that
Lin, using the on-line pseudonym “Black Eyes,” began transmitting
the e-mail addresses of Internet users in Chengdu, Guangzhou,
Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Zhanjiang, Huizhou, Shantou, Qingdao, and
Shanghai to VIP Reference and Tunnel in September 1997. In January
1998, Lin sent more e-mail addresses to the editors of VIP Reference
in response to their specific requests for the addresses of Internet
users in Nanjing and Beijing.39
Lin argued that he transmitted the e-mail addresses solely for com-mercial
reasons, but the court rejected his defense on the basis of his
e-mail correspondence with Tunnel and VIP Reference, which sug-gested
that he had political motivations.40 Lin believes that the Pub-lic
Security Bureau found out he had sent the e-mail addresses to the
online magazines through e-mail filtering and then traced the e-mail
address he used, which was hosted by a Chinese ISP.41 However,
available evidence is not sufficient to determine conclusively
whether authorities initially discovered Lin’s activities through
technical monitoring or through more traditional means, such as the
use of informants.42
Many observers said that Lin’s sentencing reflected Beijing’s growing
unease about the potential of the Internet and e-mail to aid dissi-dents’
efforts to organize, contact “overseas hostile forces,” and dis-seminate
uncensored information within China. The sentence was
apparently intended to deter other would-be “cyber-dissidents” from
using the Internet for subversive purposes. For unknown reasons,
Lin was released early, in September 1999. 43 Despite his ordeal, Lin
subsequently told the Associated Press that he was looking for new
Internet-related business opportunities because “this business is
very hot at the moment,” but he allowed that “whether or not I can
continue in this line of work depends on the political environ-ment.”
44 In 2000, Lin apparently reopened his web site, which ad-vertised
a list of more than 1,000,000 mainland e-mail addresses as
well as a variety of information-technology services.45 He ultimately
left China and is now living in the United States.
In June 2000, police in Chengdu, Sichuan, arrested and charged with
subversion the operator of a mainland web site that posted news
about dissidents and the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Huang Qi, who
operated the www.6-4tianwang.com site, was seized by police on
June 3, 2000, and held at a detention center in Chengdu. His wife,
Zeng Li, who was taken away the same day, was released. Minutes
before he was arrested, Huang posted messages on the chat room of
his web site, saying that four policemen had come to take him
away.46 The web site was originally launched in June 1999 as the first
in China dedicated to helping people find relatives abducted by traf-fickers.
It was shut down in March 2000 over reports concerning the
human rights of Chinese laborers working overseas. It was reopened
in April 2000 with the help of a U.S.-based Chinese group.47
Many more Chinese dissidents, Falungong practitioners, and others
have been charged with crimes related to political use of the Internet.
According to the Digital Freedom
Network.48
Representative cases include the following:
• Six Falungong practitioners, four of whom were graduate stu-dents
in engineering and sciences at Beijing’s elite Qinghua Uni-versity,
were sentenced in December 2001 to prison terms of
from three to 12 years for disseminating Falungong materials on
the Internet.49
• That same month, Wang Jinbo, a member of the CDP in Shan-dong
Province, was convicted of subversion and sentenced to
four years in prison for e-mailing articles calling for the reversal
of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen democracy move-ment
to overseas dissident groups.
• In September 2001, a Hunan Internet user was sentenced to
three years in jail for e-mailing articles critical of the government
to friends.
• A Chinese reporter affiliated with the CDP was sentenced in
August 2001 to reeducation through labor for trying to recruit
new members for the banned opposition party in Shanghai and
posting pro-democracy articles on web sites.
• Li Hongmin of Hunan was detained in June 2001 for e-mailing
excerpts from the Chinese version of the Tiananmen Papers,
which was swiftly banned in China, to several friends.
• In October 1999, Zhang Ji, 20, a student at Qiqihar University in
Heilongjiang, was arrested and charged with “disseminating re-actionary
documents via the Internet.” Zhang had reportedly
transmitted news of the crackdown to Falungong members in
the United States and Canada.50
It should also be noted that the authorities appear willing to charge
dissidents with “subversive” uses of the Internet that are inherently
nonpolitical in nature, primarily as a tactic to silence them or smear
their character. In January 2000, Public Security Bureau officers ar-rested
Wang Yiliang, a dissident writer from Shanghai, for his partici-pation
in an unauthorized literary association. The authorities
searched his home and found pictures of nude women downloaded
from the Internet on his computer, which they subsequently used to
sentence him to two years of reeducation through labor for “pos-sessing
pornographic articles.”51
--------------------------
23 “Veteran Dissident Qin Yongmin Detained Again,” Agence France Presse, October 27,
1998.
24 Willy Wo-Lap Lam, “China Development Union Leaders Arrested, Told to Close,”
South China Morning Post, October 27, 1998, p. 9.
25 “Hangzhou Court Verdict on Wang Youcai,” Hong Kong Information Center,
December 21, 1998, in FBIS, December 21, 1998. The court also noted that the Public
Security Bureau found an e-mail message from a “hostile overseas organization” that
had provided funding to Wang.
26 Scott Savitt, “China’s Internet Revolution,” Asian Wall Street Journal, December 21,
1999, p. 10.
27 According to the court verdict, “the public security organs testified that they found
on the Internet and in ‘Netscape Mail’ of the defendant’s Toshiba Satellite Pro 430
CDT on 26 June 1998 some 18 e-mail copies of the ‘constitution’ and ‘declaration’ sent
by the defendant to overseas recipients on 25 June 1998.”
28 Authorities also charged Wang Ce with “illegally entering the country.”
29 “Wife Demands Return of Confiscated Items,” Agence France Presse, February 18,
1999.
30 “Hangzhou Security Bureau Detains Five More Dissidents,” Hong Kong Information
Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China, June 19, 1999.
31 “Two Democracy Party Members Detained,” Agence France Presse, June 29, 1999.
32 U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999.
33 Peng Ming founded the CDU in early 1998. Beijing declared the organization illegal
in October 1998 and subsequently sentenced Peng to 18 months of reeducation
through labor on charges of soliciting a prostitute.
34 “China Charges Dissident Author with Subversion,” Associated Press, December 22,
1999.
35 “Chinese Internet Writer Faces Trial for Subverting State Power,” e-mail press
release from VIP Reference editor Richard Long, May 22, 2000.
36 U.S. Department of State, Human Rights Report for 1999. See also “Chinese Intel-lectual
Detained for Alleged Internet Crimes,” Inside China Today, www.insidechina.
com/news, September 6, 1999.
37 “Four CDP Founders Given Stiff Prison Sentences,” Hong Kong Information Center
for Human Rights and Democracy, November 9, 1999, in FBIS, November 9, 1999.
38 For a detailed account of the detention, see Lu Kun, “My Experience in a Beijing
Detention Center,” April 13, 2001, available on the Digital Freedom Network website at
http://www.dfn.org/voices/china/lukun-detention.htm. 39 “Court Verdict on Dissident Lin Hai,” Hong Kong Information Center, January 20,
1999. Police originally detained Lin in March 1998. The charges brought against him
also included forwarding copies of Da Cankao to a former classmate in Beijing and
telling him how to subscribe to the magazine via e-mail.
40 According to the authorities, in one message, Lin wrote, “Your electronic periodical
is indeed a high-class magazine carrying an independent voice. Although I hate the
tweeters of the CPC, I am alone and there is nothing I can do.”
41 Interviews, March 2002.
42 Evidence presented by the prosecution at Lin’s trial included two PCs, one laptop,
and one modem; e-mail correspondence between Lin and editors of Tunnel and VIP
Reference; e-mail correspondence between Lin and a former schoolmate; “relevant
reports” from “data communication bureaus” in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai,
Shantou, Zhanjiang, and Huizhou, the Shanghai Telecommunications Bureau, the
Beijing Zhongxi Electronic Engineering Technology Developing Company, the
Sichuan Public Information Industry Company, Limited, and the Shandong Qingdao
Information Industry Company, Limited; an “Internet User Application Card” from
the Shanghai Telecommunications Bureau; other unspecified written evidence; and
“witnesses’ statements.”
43 See “PRC’s Cyber-Dissident Released from Jail Early,” Hong Kong Agence France
Presse, March 3, 2000; and “China Grants Early Release to Cyberdissident,” Associated
Press, March 3, 2000. Lin’s early release was not widely reported in Western media
until March 2000. He was apparently reluctant to discuss with reporters the
circumstances surrounding his early release, telling Agence France Presse only that
“the real reason, nobody knows.”
44 “China Grants Early Release to Cyberdissident,” Associated Press, March 3, 2000.
45 The site, home4u.china.com/technology/internet/hopy/, is no longer accessible.
46 Josephine Ma, “Police Charge Web Site’s Founder with Subversion,” South China
Morning Post, June 8, 2000.
47 Josephine Ma, “Defiant Cyber-Surfers Play Cat-and-Mouse Game,” South China
Morning Post, June 8, 2000.
48 Digital Freedom Network, “Attacks on the Internet in China: Chinese Individuals
Currently Detained for Online Political or Religious Activity,” available on the DFN
website at
http://www.dfn.org/focus/china/netattack.htm. See also Digital Freedom Network, “Attacks on the Internet in China: Internet-Related Legal Actions and
Site Shutdowns Since January 2000,” available at
http://www.dfn.org/focus/china/ shutdown.htm.
49 “Six Falungong Academics Jailed,” South China Morning Post, December 24, 2001.
The Falungong members had also distributed printed materials on the streets in
Beijing, and it is not clear how the authorities initially discovered their activities. If this
case followed the usual pattern, the police may have arrested the Falungong members
after receiving a tip from an informant or learning that they were distributing the
leaflets. The authorities probably confirmed that they were using the Internet to
transmit similar materials only after arresting them and confiscating their computers.
The possibility that the police observed and traced their online activities, however,
cannot be discounted on the basis of the evidence available. In all of the incidents
listed here, as in this case, it is not known how the authorities discovered the Internet
activities of the individuals who were jailed or detained.
50 “China Charges Student on Falungong E-mail,” Reuters, November 8, 1999.
51 “Guizhou Poet Ma Zhe Has Been Sentenced to Five Years’ Imprisonment on
Subversion Charge,” Hong Kong Information Center, March 14, 2000.