12/03/2002

International computer companies may be providing China with technology used to restrict fundamental freedoms, Amnesty International says in a new report.

It lists Websense, Sun Systems, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and Microsoft among firms ''reported to be providing important technology to help the Chinese authorities censor the internet'', partly by assisting the Ministry of Public Security's ''Golden Shield'' project to strengthen police control with a massive surveillance database.

The number of internet users in China is doubling every six months. The market is likely to become the largest in the world within four years.

But it is also the most regulated internet market. Penalties are severe for infringing the 60 rules.

People have already been jailed for up to 12 years for internet offences.

In January 2001 it was made a capital offence ''to provide state secrets'' via the internet believed to be a response to revelations published in a book about Communist Party manoeuvrings in 1989, The Tiananmen Papers. Extracts were posted on the internet in Chinese.

Amnesty International has newly listed 33 Chinese ''prisoners of conscience'' detained for using the internet to circulate or download information.

Of the 33, three people have already died in custody, two reportedly as a result of torture.

The implementation of regulations introduced since 1994, Amnesty said, ''has often been harsh, resulting in arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, sometimes torture, confiscation of equipment and heavy fines''.

About 30,000 state security staff have been deployed to monitor websites, chat rooms and private emails. Internet cafes permitted to remain open must install software filtering out more than 500,000 banned sites considered subversive or pornographic.

''Lively on-line debate characterized the start of the internet in China,'' Amnesty said.

''However, the potential of the internet to spread new ideas has led the authorities to take measures to control its use.

''The authorities have introduced scores of regulations, blocked emails, search engines, foreign news and politically sensitive websites, and have recently introduced a filtering system for web searches on a list of prohibited key words and terms.''

Of 200,000 internet cafes in the country, only about 110,000 are officially registered. After a fire at a cafe in Beijing, 2,400 were closed in there in June.

China joined the global internet in 1994 and by last June the number of users had reached 46 million. There are 293,000 websites in the country.

Amnesty said that many of the internet regulations, particularly those concerning ''state secrets'', were ''broad and ill-defined''. New agencies established to enforce the regulations include the State Councils Propaganda Administrative Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security Computer, Monitoring and Supervision Bureau.

Under regulations of January this year, servers are required to install software to record all messages.

If screening through the software reveals that they violate the law, the ISP must send a copy to three government bureaus and ministries.

Filtering software installed on the four main public access networks in China searches for prohibited words or strings of words including ''human rights'', ''Taiwan'', ''Tiananmen'', '' Falun Gong'' and ''Tibet''.

Users trying to access information involving such key words will find their searches blocked and browsers will indicate the page cannot be displayed.