In recent years technology giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have been widely criticised for their business practices in repressive countries such as China. But yesterday the trio tackled their critics by joining a new scheme to help protect the freedoms of internet users around the world.

The Global Network Initiative, a new human rights coalition, says it is working to help companies stand up to authoritarian governments in countries such as China, Vietnam, Syria, Burma and Iran.

As well as the triumvirate of hi-tech companies, the group is also being backed by a wide range of campaigners and academic organisations, including Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The initiative aims to “protect and advance user rights to freedom of expression and privacy”…

SHANGHAI, Oct. 23 — The European Parliament on Thursday awarded its top human rights prize to jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia despite warnings from China that its relations with the 27-nation bloc would be seriously damaged if it did so.

In selecting Hu to receive the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European lawmakers said they are “sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China.” Hu has advocated for the rights of Chinese citizens with HIV/AIDS and chronicled the arrest, detention and abuse of other activists.

The award honors Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet physicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner who was a leader in the country’s pro-democracy opposition party.

“Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights in the People’s Republic of China,” European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering said in announcing the award…

New first-person reporting on Beijing’s “Black Jails”:

With the abolition of custody and repatriation (C&R) system in 2003, it seems the Chinese petitioners no longer have to worry about being detained as illegal residents when they leave for a strange city to petition a higher governmental institution. However, according to blogger Xu Zhiyong, a young professor of law and strong advocate for human rights, those supplicants are actually still being intercepted by the local officials from the way to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls, the Supreme People’s Court or other departments, and forcedly taken to some makeshift house of detention, being lock up without any legal process. As the places which confined the petitioners are always hidden among the ordinary buildings, people call them “Black Jails”.

In cooperation with citizen reporter Zhou Shuguang (Zola) and other two journalists Chen Er (Doubleaf) and Guo Jiannong, Xu Zhiyong, who firstly blogged Beijing’s black jails in the end of September, went to visit one of the unlawful prisons again on Monday, attacked by a group of thugs who were allegedly hired by the authorities…

Simon Elegant marks the six month anniversary of dissident Hu Jia’s imprisonment, drawing the ire of China’s “angry youth” :

It is exactly six months ago today that dissident Hu Jia was sentenced to three years in jail. His case has received much internaional attention and there is even speculation that he could be in line to get a Nobel Peace Prize, as Austin wrote earlier here.

Sadly the reality is that even if he gets the prize, which will be announced in a week, it will make about as much difference to his situation as giving it to jailed Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi did: none whatsoever. Still, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the details of his case and treatment by the authorities, which are particularly egregious and symbolic of the way that Beijing deals with even the mildest of dissent. I reproduce the first few grafs of a news release by Human Rights watch on the subject …

A list of the 10 worst laws in China — what they say, and what they really do:

“State Security Law, Article 4

What it says: Lists specific acts that endanger state security, but are still vague enough to encourage arbitrary enforcement.

What it does: Activists and journalists are often prosecuted for Clause 1— ‘plotting to subvert the government, dismember the State or overthrow the socialist system,’ or Clause 3—’stealing, secretly gathering, buying, or unlawfully providing State secrets.’ According to human rights researcher John Kamm, 99 percent of people tried for endangering state security are convicted.”

President Bush has managed to be both a welcome guest and an outspoken human rights advocate:

“…But he mixed the blokey banter with some unusually sharp criticisms for a leader visiting China. Beijing last week revoked the visa of Joey Cheek, the gold-medal winning skater who campaigns about the genocide in Sudan. ‘I am sorry Joey Cheek did not come, he is a good man,’ Mr Bush told NBC. ‘Joey Cheek has just got to know that I took the Sudanese message for him.’

At the opening of the new US embassy in Beijing – the second largest after Iraq – he told the Chinese: ‘Societies which allow the free expression of ideas tend to be the most prosperous and the most peaceful.’ After attending a church service on Sunday, he urged China to expand religious freedom. ‘No state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion,’ he said …

…on Sunday Mr Hu threw a lunch for Mr Bush and the rest of the large travelling Bush clan …

…Whether his comments will have any impact is less clear…”

Architect Ai Weiwei, who helped conceive the Olympic stadium, decides the Opening Ceremony is not for him:

“The colourful festival is a time not just for celebration, but also for peace and friendship. To rediscover our future, we should say goodbye to our past.

We must bid farewell to autocracy. Whatever shape it takes, whatever justification it gives, authoritarian government always ends up trampling on equality, denying justice and stealing happiness and laughter from the people.

We should also leave behind discrimination, because it is narrow-minded and ignorant, denies contact and warmth; and corrodes mankind’s belief that we can better ourselves. The only way to avoid misunderstanding, war and bloodshed is to defend freedom of expression and to communicate with sincerity, concern and good intentions.”

“BEIJING - A Chinese human rights activist whose husband was jailed earlier this year has disappeared and may have been taken by police to prevent her from speaking to journalists during the Beijing Olympics, an overseas-based human rights group said Friday.

The group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Zeng Jinyan disappeared on Thursday and has not been heard from. Zeng is married to activist Hu Jia, who was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in April.

‘All attempts to contact her have failed. It is feared that Zeng has been taken into police custody and might be mistreated,’ the group said.

‘As the Olympics open in Beijing, it is believed that Zeng was taken away to ensure that no journalists will have access to her and that she will be unable to speak out about Hu Jia during the games,’ it said in a statement.

Zeng’s cell phone was out of service Saturday. Zeng and their baby daughter have been under strict surveillance by police since Hu was detained Dec. 27. Reporters have been turned back by police guarding their residential complex…”

Tibetans can’t get out of Tibet unless they’re spotlessly pro-Beijing:

“China’s border controls not only exist to keep ‘harmful’ individuals out, but also to keep them in. Particularly if Beijing considers said individual to be more harmful to it than to the outside world.

While not unique, this esoteric approach to border controls can be a trial in itself, as Tibetan writer Woeser (sometimes referred to as Woeser La), knows all to well. She wishes to leave, but Beijing won’t let her.”

“‘Too furious, I am obviously too furious for words,’ Tian Jie, a foreign student in Canada, told the International Herald Leader after seeing the pictures on the Internet.”