Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : THE VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (4550)	11/30/2003 5:11:56 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6358

China Internet dissident released, rights group says Sun Nov 30, 9:23 AM ET Add Top Stories - AFP to My Yahoo! BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese Internet dissident Liu Di has been released from a Beijing prison after being held for a year without charges, a Hong Kong rights group said. AFP/File Photo Liu, 23, who used the online name of Stainless Steel Mouse, was released from Qincheng Prison on parole Friday afternoon, according to her father Liu Qinghua, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. Her case has drawn widespread attention both in and outside of China as a reflection of the government's policy to severely curb any political opposition to the ruling Communist Party on the Internet. Liu was arrested in November 2002 ahead of a key leadership transition headed by President Hu Jintao. Her crime appeared to be several articles that she posted on Chinese Internet sites satirizing the government and the Communist Party's alleged refusal to protect the freedoms of speech and the press as stated in China's Marxist constitution. "I talked to her father on the telephone and she was right there with him," Frank Lu, director of the information center told AFP. "It is a bit sensitive to talk with them right now and I think they have stopped answering their phones." When she was arrested, police told her father she was being charged with crimes relating to illegal organizations, but no formal arrest notice or indictment appeared. Liu was not allowed any visits from her family during her year in custody. Earlier this month the Beijing procuratorate returned the case to police for further investigation, indicating that the prosecution felt there was not enough evidence in the case and that it was up to the police to provide more. Lu said that during her year in prison, Liu Di was not harmed or tortured. Her biggest hope after getting out of prison was to return to Beijing Normal University where she had been a fourth year student studying psychology before her arrest, he said. The family has begun to apply for her reinstatement at the school, but it was uncertain if she would be allowed to study again. The release comes ahead of a visit to Beijing by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Monday and of Premier Wen Jiabao's visit to Washington later next week. Human rights issues are expected to be discussed during both visits. Liu Di's 80-year old grandmother Liu Heng spent 21 years in a Chinese labor camp after she was denounced as "a rightest" in a political campaign instigated by revolutionary leader Mao Zedong in 1957. In 1978, she was "rehabilitated" and her case was overturned and she was given back her membership of the Communist Party as well as her job as a journalist at the leading People's Daily. URL:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=1503&u=/afp/20031130/ts_afp/china_dissident_031130142349&printer=1