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Cyber-dissident honoured

Press freedom group Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF) has awarded its 2004 Internet Freedom Prize to Chinese cyber-dissident Huang Qi.

Mr Qi has been in prison for four years after criticising the Chinese government on his website, tianwang.com.

He told his wife Zeng Li he had been regularly beaten during his first years in jail and was kept in handcuffs in a dimly lit room for one year. His wife has never been allowed to visit him.

China is one of four countries that imprison people for posting 'subversive' content on the internet, and currently has around 63 cyber-dissidents in jail.

The Chinese government employs around 30,000 staff to monitor and censor websites and chatrooms that it believes to be 'subversive' or 'dangerous'.

RSF has also released its latest annual report 'The internet under surveillance', which details web censorship, human rights infringements and internet monitoring around the world.

Following the war on terror, democratic countries are also 'steadily chipping away at the freedom of their internet users', claims RSF.

"Governments are having trouble reconciling users' rights to privacy and freedom of expression with more serious financial and security concerns," says the group.

"As a result, internet freedom is now much less legally protected than that of the traditional media in most democratic countries."

More news on dotJournalism:
Iranian journalist jailed
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story943.shtml
Seven years in jail for web journalist
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story791.shtml

See also:
RSF: http://www.internet.rsf.org

Tags (click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed):
reporters | china | person communication and meetings | chinese government | huang qi | zeng li |

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