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PRESS RELEASE - INTERNATIONAL

2 May 2003

Human Rights Watch launches Internet arrests campaign on World Press Freedom Day

SOURCE: Human Rights Watch

(HRW/IFEX) - The following is a Human Rights Watch press release:

Cyber-Dissidents Should be Freed
Launch of World Press Freedom Day Internet Arrests Campaign

(New York, May 2, 2003) - Journalists, webmasters, and students who have been
jailed by their governments for simply expressing their views via the Internet
should be freed immediately, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch is marking World Press Freedom Day, Saturday, May 3, by
launching an online campaign to profile Internet dissidents, and to encourage
the international community to pressure governments for their release.

"Tunisia, China, and Vietnam all promote electronic communication as a vehicle
of modernization," said Minky Worden, Electronic Media Director of Human Rights
Watch. "Yet these governments continue to detain and jail Internet publishers
and ordinary web users."

Examples of cases the Human Rights Watch campaign spotlights include:

- Zoheir Yahiaoui, a Tunisian cyber-publisher of a satirical online magazine,
has been detained for two years on fabricated charges of "stealing" Internet
services-presumably from the cybercafe where he worked in exchange for online
time to edit his webzine-and spreading false information.

- Huang Qi, founder of a website to publish information on missing family
members in China, was arrested after fans began posting opinions on many other
social and political issues, including discussions of the Tiananmen crackdown.
He has been detained since June 3, 2000.

- Dr. Nguyen Dan Que, one of Vietnam's leading democracy activists, was arrested
in March 2003, after e-mailing a statement that challenged Vietnam's claims of
respecting freedom of expression, and endorsed U.S. proposals to circumvent
Vietnam's Internet censorship to a relative in the U.S.

"As we have seen in Tunisia, China and Vietnam, even as use of the Internet
grows globally, so too do government efforts to stifle public criticism," said
Worden. "Too often new technologies give repressive regimes new tools to monitor
individual publishers or users and to block web sites based on content."

Human Rights Watch said there is an urgent need for international pressure to
release the Internet dissidents who are now being held. Some have been subjected
to torture, others are ill, and all suffer substandard prison conditions for no
reason other than peacefully expressing their views.

Read about seven Internet dissidents and write letters on their behalf to the
people who are in a position to secure their release. For sample letters and
information about the cases, visit:
http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/internet/dissidents/

For more information on Internet Censorship around the world, see:
http://www.hrw.org/advocacy/internet/index.htm

For more information on Press Freedom, please see:
http://www.hrw.org/press/freedom.php

For further information, contact Minky Worden, tel: +1 212 216 1250, or Dinah
PoKempner, tel: +1 212 216 1210, Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave., 34th Floor,
New York NY 10018-3299, U.S.A., tel: +1 212 290 4700, fax: +1 212 736 1300,
e-mail: [email protected], Internet: http://www.hrw.org/

The information contained in this press release is the sole responsibility of
Human Rights Watch. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please
credit Human Rights Watch.
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