Business Helping China Jail Internet Dissidents
Bill Gates
Microsoft
Mike Zafirovski
Nortel CEO
By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
What kinds of social conscience do companies like Nortel and Microsoft really have?
Nortel and Microsoft are the top two among the multinationals helping the communist regime known as the Peoples Republic of China block websites and detain cyberspace dissidents.
China now boasts a 30,000-person strong cyber police force, whose spy work put over 100 Chinese Internet users in labour camps or jail. Chinese cybercops use Nortel technology to track down individual Internet users in their own homes, in cyber cafes and in universities and businesses.
What Internet researchers take for granted in North America can land you in prison in China.
A typical cyberspace offender is businessman Cai Lujun, who will be in jail for the next two years all because he posted essays affecting Chinese farmers on the Internet.
“Human rights activists in Canada, U.S. and Europe say Lujun is among an estimated 100 known Chinese Internet users who have been arrested by China’s web police thanks to technology that has been financed with your tax dollars.” (Asian Pacific Post News).
Nortel Networks, until recently Canada’s largest firm, is a frequent recipient of government largesse, the latest of which is a waiver on a $750-million Canadian taxpayer-backed special financing agreement.
But Nortel didn’t advertise that it would be helping the Chinese government crack down on Internet users when it accepted Canadian taxpayer money.
When laments got loud, Nortel made like the faceless corporation, and tried to palm off their technology as “neutral”.
China has ordered all 110,000 internet cafes in the country to now use a particular form of software that will control access to websites considered harmful or subversive, including those of Amnesty International, other international human rights groups, news and non-governmental organizations.
Those detained for downloading information from the internet, expressing their opinions or circulating information on the internet or by email include students, political dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, workers, writers, lawyers, teachers, civil servants, former police officers, engineers and businessmen.
In other words, everyday people.
Then there’s Bill Gates who says Microsoft plans to invest about $100-millionUS in China.
Praising China’s efforts to crack down on pirated software, Gates announced a package of cooperation and investment programs in Shanghai and in other parts of China.
The free enterprise system makes billions for companies like Microsoft and Nortel.
Like the governments who invest in Communist China, for some multinationals, human rights will never stand in the way of turning profits.
Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com.
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