Amnesty International also raised concerns that some overseas companies have reportedly sold technology to China, which has been used by the Chinese authorities to censor the Internet.
"As China's role as an economic and trading partner grows, multinational companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their technology is not used to violate fundamental human rights," Amnesty International said.
Background
Since the commercialisation of the Internet in China in 1995, China has become one of the fastest-growing Internet markets in the world. The number of domestic Internet users is doubling every six months and thousands of websites are being launched. In June 2002 the number of Internet users had reached almost 46 million and experts believe that within the next four years China is likely to become the largest Internet market in the world. Since 1995 more than 60 rules and regulations have been introduced covering the use of the Internet.
After a fire in an Internet cafe in Beijing in June this year, the authorities closed thousands of Internet cafes and demanded that those allowed to reopen do so only after installing filtering software to block Web sites considered
"politically sensitive" or "reactionary". The software prevents access to 500,000 various foreign websites.
The report is available at:
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/asa170072002
and the appeal cases can be found at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/asa170462002
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL; http://www.amnesty.org
"As China's role as an economic and trading partner grows, multinational companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their technology is not used to violate fundamental human rights," Amnesty International said.
Background
Since the commercialisation of the Internet in China in 1995, China has become one of the fastest-growing Internet markets in the world. The number of domestic Internet users is doubling every six months and thousands of websites are being launched. In June 2002 the number of Internet users had reached almost 46 million and experts believe that within the next four years China is likely to become the largest Internet market in the world. Since 1995 more than 60 rules and regulations have been introduced covering the use of the Internet.
After a fire in an Internet cafe in Beijing in June this year, the authorities closed thousands of Internet cafes and demanded that those allowed to reopen do so only after installing filtering software to block Web sites considered
"politically sensitive" or "reactionary". The software prevents access to 500,000 various foreign websites.
The report is available at:
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/asa170072002
and the appeal cases can be found at
http://www.web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/recent/asa170462002
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL; http://www.amnesty.org