European leader urged to help Chinese dissidents

Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based press freedom body, has urged the European Parliament president Josep Borrell to raise the cases of three imprisoned cyber-dissidents during his upcoming visit to China. They are Hao Wu, arrested in February and still not charged with any offence; Shi Tao, sentenced to 10 years jail in April for posting on foreign websites an official memo that warned journalists of the dangers of social destabilisation on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre; and Yang Zili, arrested in April 2001 and jailed for eight years for "subverting state authority" by writing articles advocating political liberalism. According to the RWP letter to Borrell, 51 cyber-dissidents and 32 journalists are currently imprisoned in China. (Via Reporters sans frontières - INTERNET)