16 Aug 2011 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, minipost
Technology giant Cisco is being sued by Chinese political prisoners for allegedly providing the technology and expertise used by the Chinese Communist Party to monitor, censor and suppress the country’s citizens. Cisco, while rejecting the allegations as baseless, had publicly stated that it helped the CCP build its Golden Shield and Policenet web monitoring systems, commonly referred to as the Great Firewall of China. The case has been brought by US law firm Ward & Ward on behalf of several dissidents.
10 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
Ran Yunfei, a Chinese blogger and writer detained by police and charged with inciting subversion earlier this year has been released after nearly six months, his wife, Wang Wei, has said. Wang confirmed her husband had returned to his home in Chengdu, Sichuan province on Tuesday night, but declined to elaborate, adding that Ran is probably restricted from speaking to the media. Prominent human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who spoke briefly to the blogger on Wednesday morning, said Ran was released into “residential surveillance” for a six-month period, under which he is not allowed to leave home or meet people without permission, and he may not speak publicly. Ran was among the first detained amid the Chinese government’s recent crackdown on dissent.
10 Aug 2011 | Index Index, minipost
In his most outspoken tweets since his release, and despite bail conditions placing him under tight restrictions for at least a year, Ai Weiwei today lashed out at the “torment” of friends entangled in his situation and pressed the cases of other detained activists. “If you don’t speak for Wang Lihong, and don’t speak for Ran Yunfei, you are not just a person who will not stand out for fairness and justice; you do not have self-respect,” he wrote. A prolific Twitter user prior to his arrest, Ai was freed in June after being detained for over two months for supposed tax evasion. Last weekend he began tweeting again, though far more sporadically.
9 Aug 2011 | Asia and Pacific, China, Iran, Middle East and North Africa
State media in China and Iran have both offered their two cents in response to the riots that have swept the UK over the past three days.
A commentator at Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, opined that this sort of chaos is precisely the result of a lack of censorship of social networking websites:
The West have been talking about supporting internet freedom, and oppose other countries’ government to control this kind of websites, now we can say they are tasting the bitter fruit [of their complacency] and they can’t complain about it.
News agency Xinhua, remembering Beijing’s smooth staging of the 2008 Olympics, said:
After the riots, the image of London has been severely damaged, leaving the people sceptical and worried about the public security situation during the London Olympics.
Meanwhile, Press TV reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast “urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people.” He also “asked independent human rights organisations to investigate the killing in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties.”
