16 February 1999

JAILED ENTREPRENEUR LIN HAI RECEIVES INTERNET FREEDOM AWARD


Entrepreneur Lin Hai, who was sentenced in January to two years in jail by a Shanghai court for providing 30,000 email addresses to a United-States-based pro-democracy magazine "VIP Reference", has won the Freedom of Cyber-Speech Award offered by the U.S.-based Webcasters Coalition for Free Speech. Lin was charged with "inciting the overthrow of state power," in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called the first case of someone being jailed in China "on charges of subversion growing out of Internet use." [See IFEX "Communiques"
#8-3 and
#7-48 for more background.] The Coalition announced on 13 February that it was honouring Lin "for defying an official crackdown on Internet use," according to a Reuters report published in the "New York Times" on 13 February. In the report, the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China is quoted as saying that Lin won the award because he "represented the struggle for freedom for Internet users all over the world."



Stay on top of free expression news.

Sign up to receive the weekly IFEX Communiqué.


Also from the Communiqué, 16 February 1999

BANGLADESH: JOURNALISTS AND NEWSPAPER OFFICES ATTACKED 16 February 1999 INTERNATIONAL: RUSSIAN SUMMER SCHOOL TO DISCUSS MEDIA AND ELECTIONS 16 February 1999 SIERRA LEONE: MORE JOURNALISTS MURDERED AND REPORTED MISSING 16 February 1999 INTERNATIONAL: FRY: FREE2000 MAKES MEDIA RECOMMENDATIONS ON KOSOVO 16 February 1999 INTERNATIONAL: IPI RECORDS 50 JOURNALISTS MURDERED IN 1998, EXAMINES FREE EXPRESSION IN 168 COUNTRIES 16 February 1999 INTERNATIONAL: CHINESE JOURNALIST GAO YU FREED FOR MEDICAL REASONS 16 February 1999
 
IFEX is a global network of committed organisations working to defend and promote free expression.
Permission is granted for material on this website to be reproduced or republished in whole or in part provided the source member and/or IFEX is cited with a link to the original item.