House Foreign Affairs Leader Slams Chinese Web Rules
House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said Wednesday that the Chinese government's "continued assault on civil liberties and political expression proves the fallacy of China's public relations campaign designed to create a façade of an open and tolerant society." Ros-Lehtinen was responding to reports in Hong Kong that authorities are requiring Chinese-made replacements to Microsoft Windows XP operating systems in Internet cafes.
"The Chinese continue to oversee a program of censorship and surveillance designed to completely eradicate any organized political dissent, and remove any discussion about democracy and human rights," Ros-Lehtinen said in a press release. "Chinese citizens are prevented from accessing or disseminating information critical of the regime, and if they somehow learn to operate around the regime’s security walls, they are hunted down and thrown in prison." Government officials there grasp the power of the Internet and are determined to squelch any criticism the moment it appears, she added. China has 253 million Internet users -- the most in the world.
The operating system switch-out, which took effect Nov. 5, is intended to crack down on the use of pirated software, a spokesman for the Culture Bureau in the city of Nanchang told Radio Free Asia, a U.S. government-funded broadcaster. Internet cafe operators are required to remove unlicensed software and replace it with legitimate copies of either Microsoft Windows or China's homegrown Red Flag Linux system, the official said. Radio Free Asia said cafes were being required to install Red Flag even if they were using legitimate copies of Windows.
Meanwhile, the Global Network Initiative -- a recently launched coalition of information and communications companies, human rights groups, academics, investors and technology leaders -- will host its first public forum in Paris on Thursday. The group, whose goal is to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy on the Internet through a list of agreed-upon principles and specific implementation commitments from Web stakeholders, is holding the event in conjunction with the International Seminar on Business and Human Rights. The seminar is part of the 60th anniversary celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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