Hong Kong
Sat Dec 20,12:39 PM ET Reuters Internet Report to My Yahoo!
HONG KONG (Reuters) – China has detained a cyber activist for posting pro-democracy essays and poems on foreign Web sites, the latest in a string of detentions or convictions of Internet dissidents, a human rights group said on Saturday.
Separately, China has also rejected an application of another cyber activist to appeal against his eight-year jail sentence, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said in a statement.
Kong Youping, a 48-year-old factory worker in Anshan city in northeastern Liaoning province, was taken away on December 13, the group said.
Beijing’s high court had also declined to allow dissident He Depu to lodge an appeal against a November 6 ruling, which sentenced him to eight years in jail for releasing four essays on the Internet, it said.
Beijing officials were not immediately available to comment.
China has been cracking down on Internet content — from politics to pornography — but has struggled to gain control over the new and popular medium.
It has created a special Internet police force, blocked some foreign news sites and shut down domestic sites posting politically incorrect literature.
Earlier this month, China sentenced another cyber dissident in the western city of Xi’an to two years in prison on charges of inciting subversion, just hours after Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in the United States for a visit.
PS China: Online labour activist arrested Linked to Asian Labour News
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
Was the activist detained in HK?
I’m curious as to know how autonomous HK is seven years after the handover. Know of any good English resources?
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couldn’t he argue that the sites were foreign, hereby not affecting Chinese citicens, since they only view them by choice, hereby not inniciating any anti-government propoganda.
This just shows you how flawed a Communist-based government is… this hurt the government, especially if it is trying to take part in Western trade, like China does…
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Great to see you posting this, Yan. I’ve got some more information over on my site here. Kong is a long-time democracy activist and it’s not his first arrest so things may not go well for him.
Tom: Kong was not arrested in Hong Kong. As Yan’s posting states, he was arrested in a city in northeast China.
Pavel: The argument that the sites were hosted on foreign soil is not a strong one, and not just in the eyes of the Chinese government. There was an interesting case in Australia recently of a libel suit against an American website owner. And second, do you really see any evidence that this sort of action is hurting China economically? Although direct investment into China has dropped over the last six months, it is slated to take off again early next year (and in some parts of China FDI has increased dramatically, so the picture is uneven). And as far as trade goes, the recent debate over garments is indicitive of the fact that China is securing more markets at a faster pace. China is not ‘trying to take part in Western trade’. It has an absolute stranglehold on some sectors. Go and take a look at the “China” entries on my web site.
I’m not saying I disagree with your sentiments. It’s just that I don’t really believe that the international community really cares too much about arrests of democracy activists when a single province across Hong Kong’s border (i.e., Guangdong) exports around US$120 billion worth of goods per annum.
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In fact, after the June 4th 1989 Tian-an-men Crackdown, American investments into China went up by I can’t remember how many billions because it proved the Central Government still had control over the people. Of course sadly, analysts reading of this even was correct as the Soviet Union and Eastern Block collasped soon after.
Strong State Control = Investments Safe.
Democracy in China = Time of Change = Bad for Money = Why would Business Care to Give Rights to People?
Yan
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China: Online labour activist arrested
“A Chinese factory worker has been arrested after posting political commentaries on foreign Web sites over the past six months, a human rights monitoring centre said Saturday.”…
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