www.amnesty.ca

Amnesty International is a worldwide movement of “ordinary” people who work together to achieve extraordinary results.

Each day we stand in solidarity with - and help protect - individuals and communities around the world whose human rights are under attack.

We appeal for the violations to stop. We mobilize public pressure to prevent human rights abuses from taking place. And we support Amnesty’s campaigns through our financial contributions.

Amnesty members come from many different cultures and backgrounds. What unites us is our determination to build a world where all people live in dignity, security and freedom.

Amnesty International is recognized by its glowing candle circled in barbed wire. And for good reason.

Governments and other groups who attack people’s dignity and freedom try to hide their oppression, keep it in the dark. They torture in isolated cells. They make people “disappear.” They attempt to impose silence through anonymous threats.

Amnesty members - alongside many human rights defenders around the world - shine the light of public attention on these hidden abuses. We expose the truth.

We create public pressure to make the abuses stop. We let the authorities know that they are being watched, that we expect them to uphold international human rights standards, and that they will be brought to justice if they commit human rights crimes.

The actions of Amnesty members are a beacon of hope for many people who are imprisoned because of their beliefs, for men and women on death row, for the tortured, for those suffering the loss of “disappeared” loved ones, and for people seeking refuge from harm.

The glowing candle flame is like the voice of nearly two million Amnesty International members around the world ....

“We are many and we are here with you. We are speaking out for your safety - and for the safety of us all. We are standing up for your dignity - and the dignity of us all. And we won’t give up until all of us can truly live in safety and dignity.”

Exposing the truth, stopping the violations, offering hope - this is what you can be a part of when you get involved in Amnesty International.

Recent News Release - Human Rights Violations - March 7, 2006

China's parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), is meeting for its annual session between Sunday 5 March and Tuesday 14 March. This is one of the busiest political events in China as thousands of high-ranking officials and legislators gather in Beijing to examine and approve the country's social and economic plans.

One of the key topics discussed at the NPC this year is economic and social improvement in rural areas, prompted by fears that the widening wealth gap between rural and urban areas is leading to social unrest in rural areas.

Rural issues
Rural protests have increased throughout China in recent years. Some such protests have been broken up by force by law enforcement officials. In some cases, violence and beatings have been carried out by local gangs, reportedly backed by local police or authorities. Few investigations have been carried out into such abuses and perpetrators have largely gone unpunished.

Amnesty International calls on the Chinese authorities urgently to take effective measures to prevent and punish such abuses.

Recent rural protests have focused on various issues, including excessive taxation of farmers; forcible seizures of land and housing by property developers backed by local government; and allegations of corruption or mismanagement by local authorities.

The Chinese Government has belatedly started to address such grievances. When addressing the NPC delegates on 5 February, Premier Wen Jiabao called the government’s pledge to increase spending in the countryside a “major [policy] change”. This includes review of the agricultural tax. He also suggested more efforts would be made to protect farmers from land requisition.

Local activists have played an important role in raising awareness of the concerns and grievances of rural citizens, yet they remain at high risk of arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment and other human rights abuses.

For examples of activists arbitrarily detained for defending the rights of people in rural areas, please see section under 'Individual Cases' below.

Detentions in run-up to NPC
Hundreds of people have also been detained in the run up to the NPC as the authorities intensified a crackdown on dissent – a pattern in China ahead of any major event.

On the night of February 28, police raided hostels near the south Beijing train station and reportedly rounded up more than 400 people visiting the capital to air grievances. According to the Beijing Youth Daily, 620,000 people have been mobilized ahead of the NPC to act as 'security workers', including security guards from apartment blocks and retired citizens. Police have stepped up surveillance of well-known dissidents and activists.

Amnesty International has called on the Chinese authorities to ensure that all human rights activists in China are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of arbitrary detention, harassment or other human rights violations.

Media crackdown ahead of NPC
In the lead up to the NPC, the Chinese authorities have also shut down several media outlets, including websites, which were seen as potentially critical of the government. These included the outspoken magazine Bing Dian (Freezing Point), a weekly supplement of China Youth Daily, which was shut down on 24 January while two of its editors were fired. It was reopened on 1 March under tight restrictions, according to reports.

On 8 February the editor of Gongyi Shibao , a magazine published by the China Social Workers Association, was demoted following an article referring to translation errors in the English language version of the official Chinese Communist Party website.

A journalist was dismissed from the northwest paper Xinjiang Jingji Baoshe (Xinjiang Financial Journal) after submitting an article about 30 or so families who were living in the region's forests because they had not been paid since 2002.

Amnesty International has called on the Chinese authorities to uphold the right to freedom of expression which includes the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and which is enshrined in international law and China’s constitution.

Individual cases

1. Hunger strikers
Gao Zhisheng, a prominent defence lawyer, started a series of protest hunger strikes on 4 February with the aim of drawing attention to the recent beatings and detentions of human rights activists and the lawyers who sought to defend them. Gao's licence to practise law had been revoked in December 2005. On 17 January 2005 he narrowly escaped an attempt on his life when a car with its licence plates covered tried to run him over. In recent months police officers have threatened Gao and his family.

On 4 February, Gao began by fasting for 48 hours and was quickly joined by others wishing to show their solidarity, who took turns in fasting. Several Chinese activists who supported or participated in the hunger strikes have subsequently been detained by police or gone missing. They include:

• Hu Jia, a prominent HIV/AIDS activist, who went missing on 16 February. His family have contacted various government departments asking where he is detained, but none of these has admitted holding him. Hu reportedly suffers from hepatitis B and needs daily medication.

• Qi Zhiyong, who has campaigned for the rights of people with disabilities, has been missing since 15 or 16 February. Qi suffered gunshot injuries during the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy demonstration, which left him disabled.
  Ouyang Xiaorong, a 32-year-old computer programmer, has been missing since 15 or 16 February after he arrived in Beijing to help Gao Zhisheng organize the hunger-strike protest.

• Chen Xiaoming, a petitioner from Shanghai, has been in detention since 15 February. His house has been searched and his computer has been taken away by police.
  Wang Lizhuang, a 48-year-old media professor, who had drafted an open letter on behalf of people evicted from their homes in Shanghai, was taken away from his workplace by police on 21 February. His house was searched and his computer was confiscated by police.

• Mao Hengfeng, a Shanghai-based activist who has persistently petitioned the authorities about being forced to have an abortion and being dismissed from her job in 1988, has been detained since 13 February. She had also protested against forced evictions in Shanghai and torture and ill-treatment meted out on people, including herself and Falun Gong practitioners, at “Re-education through Labour” facilities.

• Ma Yalian, a Shanghai-based activist who had protested against forced evictions and police malpractice, has been detained since 15 February.

• Yan Zhengxue, a rights activist, has been missing since 12 February after meeting Gao Zhisheng. Yan’s wife witnessed her husband being taken away by police from his home in Beijing on that day. Yan Zhengxue is a well-known artist whose paintings about his years in prison and other works have been exhibited both in China and abroad.

• Yu Zhijian is one of three people who threw paint onto the portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 pro-democracy protests. In 1989 he was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released in 2000. On 18 February 2006 he was detained by police after calling for people to join in the protest hunger strike. On 20 February his sister received notice that he was being held in custody on suspicion of “subversion” pending an investigation.

2. Rural activists
Examples of activists arbitrarily detained for defending the rights of people in rural areas include:

• Yang Maodong (also known as Guo Feixiong), 39, is best known for providing legal assistance in July 2005 to villagers in Taishi, Guangdong province, who claimed their village leader was corrupt and were trying to have him removed from office. After visiting Taishi village on 4 February with another lawyer, Tian Jingling, Yang and Tian were detained for 12 hours in a police station. On their release they were reportedly beaten by a group of unidentified men.

• On 8 February Yang wrote an open letter to Chinese president Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao, protesting against attacks on human rights activists and excessive force used by authorities in recent demonstrations in rural areas. He was detained the same day in Beijing as he carried out a protest hunger strike. He was later handed over to police officers from his home city of Guangzhou who escorted him back to Guangzhou where he was placed under "residential surveillance". On 22 February he launched a hunger strike to protest against being placed under "residential surveillance", and against the continued harassment of his wife and two children.

• Zhao Xin, 35, director of the Beijing human rights organization The Empowerment and Rights Institute, has been detained since 20 February. On 17 November 2005 he was severely beaten by several men as he left a restaurant in Sichuan province. He suffered a shattered knee cap and needed 11 stitches to the head after the men attacked him with steel pipes and knives. Zhao believes the attack was precipitated by his involvement in efforts to rerun the election in Taishi village, Guangdong.

Amnesty International calls for the immediate release of all those detained for legitimately defending human rights, including the individuals above.

For further information, please contact:

Elizabeth Berton-Hunter
Media Relations (Toronto)
(416) 363-9933 ext 32

THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS

www.persecution.net

The Voice of the Martyrs exists to glorify God by being Canada's effective and reliable source of information and support of persecuted Christians around the world.

The Voice of the Martyrs accomplishes its mission by:

• Running to help those who suffer for their faith.

• Remembering the families of today's Christian martyrs.

• Rebuilding the Church's witness after persecution ends.

• Reaching out in love to the persecutors.

• Raising a voice for those who cannot speak.

The Voice of the Martyrs believes that the following values are essential in carrying our mission in a manner that glorifies the Lord:

• Holding to an evangelical theology (click here to read our statement of faith)

• Maintaining a nondenominational scope.

• Focusing on the persecuted church.

• Embracing prayer as a priority.

• Practicing servanthood to the persecuted church.

• Equipping without creating unhealthy dependency.

• Partnering with others to accomplish the task.

• Building practical bonds of love between persecuted and Canadian Christians.

• Pursuing excellence in who we are and in everything we do.

• Demonstrating financial integrity and accountability.

• Upholding our Canadian identity and approach.

COUNTRY PROFILE & PERSECUTION NEWS– CHINA/TIBET

www.persecution.net/country/china.htm

HOW TO HELP & GET INVOLVED:

1. PRAY - www.persecution.net/prayer.htm

2. WRITE LETTERS- www.persecution.net/write.htm

3. MAKE A DONATION- www.persecution.net/donation.htm

4. VOLUNTEER MINISTRIES- www.persecution.net/volunteer.htm

5. PROJECTS- www.persecution.net/projects.htm

No matter where The Voice of the Martyrs ministers, the first request of persecuted Christians is always the same:

"But how?" you may ask. "Is there a special technique required? How can I pray for people I don't know and about whose situation I know so little?"

These are good questions, but the fact of the matter is...

The Word of God remains our best guide for knowing how to pray for our persecuted sisters and brothers worldwide.

• That persecuted believers will stand firm in their faith.
  (1Peter 5:8-10)

• That they will not be fearful but trust God. (Rev. 2:10)

• That they will not seek to retaliate, but entrust themselves to Him who judges justly and seek to live in peace with everyone. (Rom. 12:17-21, 1 Peter 2:23)

• That they will be enabled to rejoice, even in suffering.
  (1 Peter 4:12-13)

• That they will be able to actually love and forgive those who persecute them. (Matt. 5:43-44; Luke 23:34, Col 3:13)

• That they will bless those who have persecuted them.
  (Rom. 12:14,21)

• That they will keep their eyes on Jesus, persevere in their faith, and not grow weary or lose heart. (Heb. 10:32-39; Heb.12:1-3)

• That they will trust God to enable them to proclaim the Gospel even while suffering. (2 Tim. 4:16-18)

• That they will rely on the Lord's strength and not on their own.
  (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

• That those who oppress Christians may experience repentance and salvation, just as Paul did. (Acts 9:1-19)

• For the provision of Bibles and other Christian literature to reach the most remote and needy areas where they are in the shortest supply. (Psalm 119:42-43)

• That those who suffer tremendous physical pain and trials will be delivered by the Lord from their agony.
  (II Corinthians 1:9-11)

• That local leaders of the persecuted churches around the world would continue to faithfully fulfill their God given responsibilities. (I Peter 5:1-4)

• That those of us who have religious freedom will understand what it means to suffer with other members of the worldwide church. (I Corinthians 12:26)

• That we who have religious freedom would have the boldness and courage to speak out and seek to make changes in the name of the Lord, on behalf of persecuted believers.
  (Proverbs 31:8-9)

• That we who have religious freedom would faithfully remember and pray for our Christian family worldwide who are in prison and suffering for their faith. (Hebrews 13:3)

HEART FOR AFRICA

www.dreamforafrica.com

Heart for Africa is a movement that is working to provide real solutions to the issues plaguing Africa including Hunger, Orphans, Poverty and Education. We are looking for hearts that resonate with ours - people just like you who are called to do something to make a difference in the world.

Volunteer and Change a Life:

Beat the Drum -www.dreamforafrica.com/beatdrum.htm

Never Ending Gardens - www.dreamforafrica.com/neverending.htm

Heart for Africa Newsletter

www.heartnewsletter.blogspot.com

On March 2, 2006 new Heart for Africa President, Ian Maxwell, had another successful meeting with the Minister of Enterprise & Employment in Swaziland, the Honourable Minister Lutfo Dlamini. After reviewing the past and planning for the future this letter was given to Heart for Africa to further confirm Swaziland's ongoing partnership and thanks to the Heart for Africa team …
The letter reads:


3rd March 2006

Mr. Ian Maxwell
President
Heart for Africa

Dear Ian,

It is with great joy and gratitude that I write this letter to you. Dream for Africa over the past two years has brought hope, love and genuine compassion to the people of our country.

Through the Never Ending Garden program, hundreds of thousands of backyard gardens have been planted in Swaziland. Not only did your volunteers plant gardens but they also passed on the knowledge of how to grow our own food. Seeing your volunteers in the fields planting seedlings on there hands and knees while being studied by my people brought joy to my heart. Change is in the wind, and Dream for Africa has become a real movement and continues to build momentum.

The Beat the Drum HIV/AIDS project in Swaziland was one of the most successful behavioral change programs to ever run in our high schools. There are very positive signs that indicate our most precious resource has begun to embrace abstinence as a way of life. Our country may have the dubious title as the highest prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the world, but with programs like Beat the Drum there is hope for a future.

Our country is suffering on many levels. Our orphans and vulnerable children numbers are growing at a rate that almost brings sickness to my lips. This is a problem of epic proportion now and the World Health Organizations predicts that it will only get worse. Dream for Africa was not afraid of talking about this problem or formulating proposals to address this issue. Please do not let one failed proposal deter you from continuing to provide unique and workable solutions.

Please know that His Majesty King Mswati III is desirous to see the partnership grow into success in the future. We would also like to thank Dr. Bruce Wilkinson for coming to Swaziland and giving so selflessly of himself and his family. Without him, Dream for African could not have achieved the huge success that you have to date working closely with the Swazi government. We wish him well as he enters in to his well deserved retirement years.

I understand that with the change of leadership of Dream for Africa there comes a change of name - Heart for Africa. I am encouraged to see that the dream has moved into the heart. The heart is what keeps the body alive and I can see that you have a large heart and are prepared to share it with our people. I do believe you will lead Heart for Africa into the future with patience and resolve.

Ian, it was a pleasure meeting you again and please know that the Swazi people are most grateful for the selflessness of your volunteers who have come to Swaziland to serve. All of your past and future volunteers are most welcome in Swaziland. I look forward to working with you side by side as we put our shoulder to the plow of hope

Yours Sincerely,

LUTFO E. DLAMINI (MP)
MINISTER FOR ENTERPRISE & EMPLOYMENT

THE CITIZEN LAB

www.citizenlab.org

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics.

A "hothouse" that brings together social scientists, filmmakers, computer scientists, activists, and artists, the Citizen Lab sponsors projects that explore the cutting-edge of hypermedia technologies and grassroots social movements, civic activism, and democratic change within an emerging planetary polity.

Professor Ronald Deibert

www.deibert.citizenlab.org

Ronald J. Deibert (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.) is associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto, specializing in media, technology, and world politics, and a Ford Foundation Research Scholar of Information and Communicaton Technologies (2002-2004). He is the author of the book Parchment, Printing, and Hypermedia: Communications in World Order Transformation (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). He is also the director of the Citizen Lab, based at the University of Toronto (http://www.citizenlab.org/). The Citizen Lab sponsors research at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics.

He has published articles on topics relating to Internet politics, civil society and global politics, earth remote sensing and space policy, and social science epistemology in the journals International Organization, The Review of International Studies, Journal of Social Issues, International Studies Perspectives, Intelligence and National Security, and The European Journal of International Relations. He currently serves on the editorial board of the journals International Studies Perspectives, Astropolitics, The Journal of Environmental Peace, and Explorations in Media Ecology.

Professor Deibert is presently finishing a book manuscript on the politics of Internet security, entitled Code Wars: Internet Security and Global Civic Networks. He is presently doing research on the Internet security and citizen networks.

He has been a consultant to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Human Rights in China, and the Canadian Department of National Defence on issues relating to the Internet, space technology, arms control, and international relations. He is a frequent guest on television and radio shows, including CBC, CTV, Fox News, and TVO. At the University of Toronto, Professor Deibert has employed extensive use of new media technology in courses that he teaches (http://pol108.net/). He served on the University of Toronto Provost’s Task Force on Academic Computing and New Media in 2000. He was awarded the University of Toronto Outstanding Teaching Award (2002) and the Northrop Frye Distinguished Teaching and Research Award (2002).

Along with filmaker Mike Downie, Professor Deibert has co-produced the television documentary series, “Activist TV,” “Into America” and "Hacktivista," all of which were broadcast by TVOntario.

TESTIMONY OF GOOGLE INC- THE INTERNET IN CHINA

Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog team, Feb 15, 2006 on googleblog.blogspot.com

At today's hearing before the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives, we provided the following testimony:

Testimony of Google Inc. before the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations

Committee on International Relations, United States House of Representatives
February 15, 2006

Elliot Schrage
Vice President, Global Communications
and Public Affairs, Google Inc.

My name is Elliot Schrage and I am the vice president for global communications and public affairs at Google. My role is to help shape and explain the decisions Google makes as a company in its efforts to provide global access to information as quickly, conveniently, usefully, and comprehensively as possible.

I'm here today to answer any and all questions you might have about how we are attempting to do business in China. I certainly don't – my colleagues certainly don't – expect everyone to agree with our decision to launch a new service inside this challenging, complex, promising market. I hope my testimony will help explain how we came to our decision, what we're seeking to accomplish, and how we’re seeking to accomplish it.

Introduction
At the outset, I want to acknowledge what I hope is obvious: Figuring out how to deal with China has been a difficult exercise for Google. The requirements of doing business in China include self-censorship – something that runs counter to Google’s most basic values and commitments as a company. Despite that, we made a decision to launch a new product for China – Google.cn – that respects the content restrictions imposed by Chinese laws and regulations. Understandably, many are puzzled or upset by our decision. But our decision was based on a judgment that Google.cn will make a meaningful – though imperfect – contribution to the overall expansion of access to information in China.

Until a few weeks ago, Google has been serving Chinese Internet users the same way we serve all Internet users worldwide since the company was founded in 1999. Though we had no operations or employees in China, we were able to provide a Chinese-language version of Google.com that, thanks to the global nature of the Internet, could easily be reached by users inside China. In 2002, we started to learn that Google was sporadically unavailable to Chinese users. In the fall of that year, we awoke one morning to emails from Google users in China informing us that our service was completely unavailable. We faced a choice at that point: hold fast to our commitment to free speech (and risk a long-term cut-off from our Chinese users), or compromise our principles by entering the Chinese market directly and subjecting ourselves to Chinese laws and regulations. We stood by our principles, which turned out to be a good choice, as access to Google.com was largely restored within about two weeks.

However, we soon discovered new problems. Many queries, especially politically sensitive queries, were not making it through to Google’s servers. And access became often slow and unreliable, meaning that our service in China was not something we felt proud of. Even though we weren’t doing any self-censorship, our results were being filtered anyway, and our service was being actively degraded on top of that. Indeed, at some times users were even being redirected to local Chinese search engines Nevertheless, we continued to offer our service from outside China while other Internet companies were entering China and building operations there.

A bit more than a year ago, we decided to take a serious look at China and re-assess whether our approach there was the best strategy. We spent a lot of time talking to Chinese Internet experts and users, scholars and academics inside and outside China, respected “China hands,” human rights groups and activists, government officials, business leaders, as well as our own Chinese employees. From those discussions, we reached the conclusion that perhaps we had been taking the wrong path. Our search results were being filtered; our service was being crippled; our users were flocking to local Chinese alternatives; and, ultimately, Chinese Internet users had less access to information than they would have had.

Let me dig a bit deeper into the analytic framework we developed for China. Google’s objective is to make the world’s information accessible to everyone, everywhere, all the time. It is a mission that expresses two fundamental commitments:

(a) First, our business commitment to satisfy the interests of users, and by doing so to build a leading company in a highly competitive industry; and

(b) Second, our policy conviction that expanding access to information to anyone who wants it will make our world a better, more informed, and freer place.

Some governments impose restrictions that make our mission difficult to achieve, and this is what we have encountered in China. In such a situation, we have to add to the balance a third fundamental commitment:

(c) Be responsive to local conditions.

So with that framework in mind, we decided to try a different path, a path rooted in the very pragmatic calculation that we could provide more access to more information to more Chinese citizens more reliably by offering a new service – Google.cn – that, though subject to Chinese self-censorship requirements, would have some significant advantages. Above all, it would be faster and more reliable, and would provide more and better search results for all but a handful of politically sensitive subjects. We also developed several elements that distinguish our service in China, including:

• Disclosure to users -- We will give notification to Chinese users whenever search results have been removed.

• Protection of user privacy -- We will not maintain on Chinese soil any services, like email, that involve personal or confidential data. This means that we will not, for example, host Gmail or Blogger, our email and blogging tools, in China.

• Continued availability of Google.com -- We will not terminate the availability of our unfiltered Chinese-language Google.com service.

Many, if not most, of you here know that one of Google's corporate mantras is “Don't be evil.” Some of our critics – and even a few of our friends – think that phrase arrogant, or naïve or both. It's not. It's an admonition that reminds us to consider the moral and ethical implications of every single business decision we make.

We believe that our current approach to China is consistent with this mantra. Our hope is that our mix of measures, though far from our ideal, would accomplish more for Chinese citizens’ access to information than the alternative. We don’t pretend that this is the single “right” answer to the dilemma faced by information companies in China, but rather a reasonable approach that seems likely to bring our users greater access to more information than any other search engine in China. And by serving our users better, we hope it will be good for our business, too, over the long run.

To be clear, these are not easy, black-and-white issues. As our co-founder Sergey Brin has said, we understand and respect the perspective of people who disagree with our decision; indeed, we recognize that the opposing point of view is a reasonable one to hold. Nonetheless, in a situation where there are only imperfect options, we think we have made a reasonable choice. It’s a choice that has generated enormous attention – vastly more, indeed, than our earlier decisions not to cross the line of self-censorship. We hope that the ensuing dialogue will lead to productive collaboration among businesses and governments to further our shared aim of expanding access to information worldwide.

We think we have made a reasonable decision, though we cannot be sure it will ultimately be proven to be the best one. With the announcement of our launch of Google.cn, we’ve begun a process that we hope will better serve our Chinese users. We also hope that we will be able to add new services, if circumstances permit. We are also aware that, for any number of reasons, this may not come to pass. Looking ahead, we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives I’ve outlined above, we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.

In the remainder of my written testimony below, I set forth the situation in China as we see it, the debate over the options we confronted, the substance of what Google has decided to do there, the reasoning behind that decision, and some ideas for both industry and governmental actions that could make a useful contribution to the objective of expanding access to information in every corner of the globe.

The Big Picture: The Internet is Transforming China

The backdrop to Google’s decision to launch Google.cn is the explosive growth of the Internet in China. To put it simply, the Internet is transforming China for the better. And the weight of the evidence suggests that the Internet is accelerating and deepening these positive trends, even in an imperfect environment.

Viewed broadly, information and communication technology – including the Internet, email, instant messaging, web logs, bulletin boards, podcasts, peer-to-peer applications, streaming audio and video, mobile telephones, SMS text messages, MMS photo-sharing, and so on – has brought Chinese citizens a greater ability to read, discuss, publish and communicate about a wider range of topics, events, and issues than ever before.

There are currently more than 105 million Internet users in China.1 Nearly half of them have access to broadband connections – an increase of 41% since 2003.2 Even so, Internet deployment in China is at a very early stage, reaching only about 8% of the population.3 Among those under 24 years of age, more than 80% are Internet users.4 By 2010, China will have more than 250 million Internet users.5 And already, there are more than 350 million mobile phones, a number growing by roughly 57 million annually.6

A recent and well-respected study by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) documents some interesting, and perhaps surprising, findings about the views of Chinese Internet users:7

• Most Chinese Internet users believe that the Internet is changing politics in China. Internet users tend to agree that it will increase political transparency and expand discourse: 63% believe that citizens will learn more about politics by going online, 54% of users believe the Internet provides more opportunities for criticizing the government, and 45% believe that the Internet provides more opportunities to express political views.

• Large majorities of Chinese believe that certain kinds of Internet content, including pornography and violence, should be controlled. However, only 7.6% believe that political content on the Internet should be controlled.

• By a 10:1 margin, Chinese Internet users believe that the Internet will make the world a better, rather than worse, place.

Based on its results, the CASS Internet Survey concludes that “the political impact of the Internet is more significant than it is in other countries. The impact can be seen not only in the relationship between government and citizens but also among people who share similar political interests. Thus, we can predict that as Internet becomes more popular in China, the impact on politics will be stronger.”8

The Problem: Access to Google in China is Slow and Unreliable

Since 2000, Google has been offering a Chinese-language version of Google.com, designed to make Google just as easy, intuitive, and useful to Chinese-speaking users worldwide as it is for speakers of English. Within China, however, Google.com has proven to be both slow and unreliable. Indeed, Google’s users in China struggle with a service that is often unavailable. According to our measurements, Google.com appears to be unreachable around 10% of the time. Even when Chinese users can get to Google.com, the website is slow (sometimes painfully so, and nearly always slower than our local competitors), and sometimes produces results that, when clicked on, stall out the user’s browser. The net result is a bad user experience for those in China.

The cause of the slowness and unreliability appears to be, in large measure, the extensive filtering performed by China’s licensed Internet Service Providers (ISPs). China’s laws, regulations, and policies against illegal information apply not only to the Internet content providers, but also to the ISPs. China has nine licensed international gateway data carriers, and many hundreds of smaller local ISPs. Each ISP is legally obligated to implement its own filtering mechanisms, leading to diverse and sometimes inconsistent outcomes across the network at any given moment. For example, some of Google’s services appear to be unavailable to Chinese users nearly always, including Google News, the Google cache (i.e., our service that maintains stored copies of web pages), and Blogspot (the site that hosts weblogs of Blogger customers). Other services, such as Google Image Search, can be reached about half the time. Still others, such as Google.com, Froogle, and Google Maps, are unavailable only around 10% of the time.

Even when Google is reachable, the data indicates that we are almost always slower than our local competitors. Third-party measurements of latency (meaning the delay that a user experiences when trying to download a web page) suggest that the average total time to download a Google webpage is more than seven times slower than for Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine.

Users trying to get to Google will have different experiences at different times of day, and from different points on the Chinese network. For example, access to Google appears to be speedier and more reliable in Beijing than in Shanghai, and generally better in the largest cities compared to smaller towns, suburbs, and villages.

Based on our analysis of the available data, we believe that the filtering performed by the international gateway ISPs is far more disruptive to our services than that performed by smaller local ISPs. Because Google’s servers have, to date, been located exclusively outside China, all traffic to and from Google must traverse at least one of China’s international gateway ISPs. Accordingly, Google’s access problems can only be solved by creating a local presence inside China.

Operating without a local presence, Google’s slowness and unreliability appears to have been a major – perhaps the major – factor behind our steadily declining market share. According to third-party estimates, Baidu has gone from 2.5% of the search market in 2003 to 46% in 2005, while Google has dropped to below 30% (and falling).9 The statistics are even more dire among the college-age young, who use Baidu even more, and Google less, than their elders. Part of this has been due to improvements in Baidu’s services and a major marketing campaign (funded by the proceeds of its successful IPO in the US), but the leading cause seems to be the Chinese users’ annoyance at the persistent slowness and unreliability of Google.

Google’s Calibrated Approach

In light of the chronic access problems that have plagued Google in China, Google’s management set out more than a year ago to study and learn about China, to understand and assess our options, to debate their relative merits, and to make a decision that properly weighs both business and ethical considerations.

There is no question that, as a matter of business, we want to be active in China. It is a huge, rapidly growing, and enormously important market, and our key competitors are already there. It would be disingenuous to say that we don't care about that because, of course, we do. We are a business with stockholders, and we want to prosper and grow in a highly competitive world.

At the same time, acting ethically is a core value for our company, and an integral part of our business culture. Our slowness and unreliability has meant that Google is failing in its mission to make the world’s information accessible and useful to Chinese Internet users. Only a local presence would allow Google to resolve most, if not all, of the latency and access issues. But to have a local presence in China would require Google to get an Internet Content Provider license, triggering a set of regulatory requirements to filter and remove links to content that is considered illegal in China.

So we were confronted with two basic options – [1] stay out of China, or [2] establish a local presence in China – either of which would entail some degree of inconsistency with our corporate mission. In assessing these options, we looked at three fundamental Google commitments:

(a) Satisfy the interests of users,
(b) Expand access to information, and
(c) Be responsive to local conditions.

The strongest argument for staying out of China is simply that Google should not cross the line of self-censorship, and should not be actively complicit in imposing any limits on access to information. To be clear, the persistence of severe access problems amid fierce competition from local alternatives suggests that the consequence of this approach would be the steady shrinking of Google’s market share ever closer to zero. Without meaningful access to Google, Chinese users would rely exclusively on Internet search engines that may lack Google’s fundamental commitment to maximizing access to information – and, of course, miss out on the many features, capabilities, and tools that only Google provides.

On the other hand, we believe that even within the local legal and regulatory constraints that exist in China, a speedy, reliable Google.cn service will increase overall access to information for Chinese Internet users. We noted, for example, that the vast majority of Internet searches in China are for local Chinese content, such as local news, local businesses, weather, games and entertainment, travel information, blogs, and so forth. Even for political discussions, Chinese users are much more interested in local Chinese Internet sites and sources than from abroad. Indeed, for Google web search, we estimate that fewer than 2% of all search queries in China would result in pages from which search results would be unavailable due to filtering.

Crucial to this analysis is the fact that our new Google.cn website is an additional service, not a replacement for Google.com in China. The Chinese-language Google.com will remain open, unfiltered and available to all Internet users worldwide.

At the same time, the speed and technical excellence of Google.cn means that more information will be more easily searchable than ever before. Even with content restrictions, a fast and reliable Google.cn is more likely to expand Chinese users’ access to information.

We also took steps that went beyond a simple mathematical calculus about expanding access to information. First, we recognize that users are also interested in transparency and honesty when information has been withheld. Second, users are concerned about the privacy, security, and confidentiality of their personal information. Finally, users want to have competition and choices, so that the market players have a strong incentive to improve their offerings over time.
Transparency. Users have an interest in knowing when potentially relevant information has been removed from their search results. Google’s experience dealing with content restrictions in other countries provided some crucial insight as to how we might operate Google.cn in a way that would give modest but unprecedented disclosure to Chinese Internet users.

Google has developed a consistent global policy and technical mechanism for handling content deemed illegal by a host government. Several of the countries in which we operate have laws that regulate content.In all of these countries, Google responds similarly. First, when we get a court order or legal notice in a foreign country where we operate, we remove the illegal content only from the relevant national version of the Google search engine (such as Google.fr for France). Second, we provide a clear notice to users on every search results page from which one or more links has been removed. The disclosure allows users to hold their legal systems accountable.

This response allows Google to be respectful of local content restrictions while providing meaningful disclosure to users and strictly limiting the impact to the relevant Google website for that country. For China, this model provided some useful guidance for how we could handle content restrictions on Google.cn in way that would afford some disclosure when links have been removed.

Privacy and Security. Google is committed to protecting consumer privacy and confidentiality. Prior to the launch of Google.cn, Google conducted intensive reviews of each of our services to assess the implications of offering it directly in China. We are always conscious of the fact that data may be subject to the jurisdiction of the country where it is physically stored. With that in mind, we concluded that, at least initially, only a handful of search engine services would be hosted in China.

We will not store data somewhere unless we are confident that we can meet our expectations for the privacy and security of users’ sensitive information. As a practical matter, meeting this user interest means that we have no plans to host Gmail, Blogger, and a range of other such services in China.

Competition and Choice. Internet users in China, like people everywhere, want competition and choices in the marketplace. Without competition, companies have little incentive to improve their services, advance the state of the art, or take innovative risks. If Google were to stay out of China, it would remove powerful pressure on the local players in the search engine market to create ever-more-powerful tools for accessing and organizing information. Google’s withdrawal from China would cede the terrain to the local Internet portals that may not have the same commitment, or feel the competitive pressure, to innovate in the interests of their users.

The Decision: What Google Is Doing in China

The deliberative process and analysis outlined above led to the following decisions.

(1) Launch Google.cn.
We have recently launched Google.cn, a version of Google’s search engine that we will filter in response to Chinese laws and regulations on illegal content. This website will supplement, and not replace, the existing, unfiltered Chinese-language interface on Google.com. That website will remain open and unfiltered for Chinese-speaking users worldwide.

(2) Disclosure of Filtering
Google.cn presents to users a clear notification whenever links have been removed from our search results in response to local laws and regulations in China. We view this a step toward greater transparency that no other company has done before.

(3) Limit Services
Google.cn today includes basic Google search services, together with a local business information and map service. Other products – such as Gmail and Blogger, our blog service – that involve personal and confidential information will be introduced only when we are comfortable that we can provide them in a way that protects the privacy and security of users’ information.

Next Steps: Voluntary Industry Action

Google supports the idea of Internet industry action to define common principles to guide the practices of technology firms in countries that restrict access to information. Together with colleagues at other leading Internet companies, we are actively exploring the potential for guidelines that would apply for all countries in which Internet content is subjected to governmental restrictions. Such guidelines might encompass, for example, disclosure to users, protections for user data, and periodic reporting about governmental restrictions and the measures taken in response to them.

Next Steps: U.S. Government Action

The United States government has a role to play in contributing to the global expansion of free expression. For example, the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative should continue to make censorship a central element of our bilateral and multilateral agendas.

Moreover, the U.S. government should seek to bolster the global reach and impact of our Internet information industry by placing obstacles to its growth at the top of our trade agenda. At the risk of oversimplification, the U.S. should treat censorship as a barrier to trade, and raise that issue in appropriate fora.
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1 “China Online Search Market Survey Report,” China Network Information Center (CNNIC) (August 2005) (“CNNIC Search Engine Study”).
2 Guo Liang, “Surveying Internet Usage and Impact in Five Chinese Cities,” Research Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (November 2005) (“the CASS Internet Survey”), at iii. The CASS Internet Survey is a statistically rigorous survey of Internet users in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Changsha.
3 Id.
4 Id., at iv.
5 “15th Statistic Survey Report on the Internet Development in China,” China Network Information Center (CNNIC) (2005).
6 From statistics published by China’s Ministry of Information Industry.
7 CASS Internet Survey., at iv-ix, 93-100.
8 Id. at 100.
9 CNNIC Search Engine Study.