[huridocs-tech] Huang Qi awarded 2004 Cyberfreedom Prize

RSF Press release
23.06.2004

Reporters Without Borders on 22 June awarded its 2004 Cyberfreedom Prize
to Huang Qi, who has been imprisoned for four years for criticising the
Chinese government on his Internet site. The international press freedom
organisation also released its report 'Internet Under Surveillance 2004' -
full version available online - that monitors press freedom on the
Internet in nearly 60 countries.

Reporters Without Borders on 22 June awarded its 2004 Cyberfreedom Prize
to Huang Qi, who has been imprisoned for four years for criticising the
Chinese government on his website. The prize is funded with the help of
the Fondation de France. The international press freedom organisation also
released its report 'Internet Under Surveillance 2004', produced with the
assistance of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Bank
handling official deposits.

« Internet under surveillance » 2004 report:
http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=433

Reporters Without Borders has published its annual report on the state of
online freedom in more than 60 countries - The Internet Under
Surveillance.  The rights of Internet users, webmasters and online
journalists have been substantially curbed since the 11 September 2001
attacks in the United States. The fight against terrorism has led to
stricter monitoring of Internet traffic in both democracies and under
authoritarian regimes.

Four countries throw people in jail for posting "subversive" topics online
- China (with 63 cyber-dissidents in prison), Vietnam (7), the Maldives
(3)  and Syria (2). Censorship of online publications is steadily
increasing and dictatorships are developing more and more sophisticated
ways of filtering the Internet. China and Vietnam are experts in the
field. But the regimes in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Tunisia and Turkmenistan
also block access to a very wide range of websites, including those
featuring pornography, independent magazines, banned religions and human
rights.

Cuba, Burma and North Korea have even harsher policies and restrict
Internet access to a tiny minority of citizens rather than set up costly
monitoring systems. Democratic countries have steadily chipped away at the
freedom of their Internet users. This involves laudable aims, such as
fighting online paedophilia, helping dismantle terrorist networks and
protecting cultural industries against piracy. But governments are having
trouble reconciling users' rights to message privacy and freedom of
expression with more and more serious financial and security concerns. As
a result, Internet freedom is now much less legally protected than that of
the traditional media in most democratic countries.

The winner

When state security police came to arrest Huang Qi at his home on 3 June
2000, he just had time to send a last e-mail message saying : "Goodbye
everyone, the police want to take me away. We've got a long road ahead of
us. Thanks to all those helping to further democracy in China." Huang,
founder of the website www.tianwang.com, was charged in January 2001 with
"subversion" and "incitement to overthrow the government" (under articles
103 and 105 of the criminal code) for allowing articles about the June
1989 Tiananmen massacre to appear on his website (based in the United
States after being banned in China). He had to wait until 9 May 2003 to
find out he had been sentenced to five years in prison.

Worn out by prison interrogators and bad detention conditions, he fainted
at the first court hearing in February 2001. A Western diplomat who was
present said he had a scar on his forehead and had lost a tooth,
apparently after being beaten. He was given a sham secret trial in August
that year and his relatives were not allowed to visit him for three years
after his arrest.

He told his wife Zeng Li he had been regularly beaten during his first
years in prison by police who forced him to sleep on the floor of his cell
for a year. He was also kept handcuffed in a dimly-lit room for a year.
His cell was changed each month because his guards said he was talking too
much to fellow prisoners about corruption and politics.




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