Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, November 26, 2002; 11:46 AM

BEIJING Warning of tightening government controls over the Internet, Amnesty International is demanding the release of 33 people imprisoned for online subversion and says such detainees are emerging as a new category of Chinese "prisoners of conscience."

In a sweeping report released Wednesday, the London-based human rights group also said American companies are helping China monitor the Internet through sales of software and other equipment boosting China's ability to muzzle discussion online.

"Internet users are the latest group to be ensnared in China's deadly web of arrest, detention and torture, and U.S. corporations increasingly facilitate this repression," T. Kumar, Amnesty's Asia advocacy director said in a news release accompanying the report.

The report is the first in which Amnesty identifies Internet users as a new class of dissident alongside the religious, political and minority rights dissenters already targeted by China.

"Everyone who is detained purely for peacefully publishing their views or other information on the Internet or for accessing certain Web sites is a prisoner of conscience and they should be released immediately and unconditionally," Amnesty International said.

China has about 60 million Internet users one of the largest numbers of any country, though the percentage of users in the nation of 1.3 billion remains in single digits.

The Ministry of Information Industry says annual business volume in the Internet industry tops $840 million.

However, China's Communist Party has worked to squelch any role for the network as a forum for free speech. Blocks are placed on scores of Web sites belonging to foreign governments, news organizations and human rights groups including Amnesty. Gambling and pornography Web sites are blocked, as well as any site the Chinese government considers extremist.

Thousands of Internet cafes closed after a deadly fire in Beijing have been allowed to reopen only after installing monitoring software. Police monitor e-mail accounts and Internet usage, and Amnesty says some 30,000 officers have been assigned to Internet duty.

The government holds Internet service providers responsible for all postings on their sites. Webmasters are warned to cut off subversive talk in Internet chatrooms.

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Amnesty said the 33 imprisoned were tried in secret and sentenced mostly for subversion.

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Others detained included members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement who downloaded or distributed online information about the group, Amnesty said. At least three of those arrested for Internet-related crimes have died in police custody, it alleged.

Despite China's relative success at bringing the Internet to heel, the wealth that the new technology it is creating will eventually produce calls for greater protection of civil liberties, Amnesty said.

"As the importance of the Internet grows," the report said, "so too will the millions of users and the demands of those seeking justice and respect for human rights in China."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41193-2002Nov26.html