by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Reporters Without Borders-Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), a non-profit international press freedom and journalist support advocacy group, designated Wednesday, Nov. 24, Jailed Journalists' Support Day. As part of a global effort to raise awareness about reporters who have run afoul of authorities around the world, the Mirror is sponsoring Yang Zili, one of 62 cyber-dissidents currently imprisoned in China.

Three years ago, Yang Zili was pushing the electronic envelope. The 29-year-old computer expert's Web site, www.lib.126.com, acted as his outlet for criticizing China's Communist Party dictatorship, its lack of political expression, its repression of dissenters and the economic backwardness of the peasantry. He also posted articles written by the New Youth Society, a politically oriented discussion group. It didn't take long before the powers that be took notice.

On March 13, 2001, Yang and his wife Lu Kun were arrested as they left their Beijing home. Lu, a primary school teacher, was released three days later, but was told by police not to bother looking for her husband because he was being held by police.

On Sept. 28, Yang and three other New Youth Society members stood trial for subversion. While denying he was trying to overthrow the state, he did express admiration for American-style democracy and the need for greater liberalization - through reform, not revolution. In May, 2003, he was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. Since then, his wife, who lost her job and is often harassed by Chinese authorities, has only been allowed to visit him once a month.

According to a 2004 RSF report, "China is the world's biggest prison for cyber-dissidents. It is also the country where the technology for e-mail interception and Internet censorship is the most developed." And while Internet use in China is blooming - it's estimated there are 80-million users in the country, more than any in the world outside the U.S., and e-business is rapidly expanding - there is an increasing level of alarm among state authorities that unmonitored information flow is flowing too fast.

Internet publishing and the crackdown on it are new phenomena, says Vincent Brossel, director of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk in Paris. But the Chinese have been cracking down on inappropriate Internet use from the beginning. "The first arrest came in 1999. There have been around 100 arrests in five years." The world's biggest country is having a busy time dealing with the Internet explosion. This year alone, China has shut down 1,600 Internet cafés and fined operators some $12-million (U.S.).

RSF has been busy lobbying the Chinese, American, Canadian and European governments to secure the release of its cyber-dissidents. It has also helped raise funds to pay for Yang and others' legal fees. Although there have been some successes in getting jailed Web writers out of prison, Brossel says China "is doing a good job of clamping down on dissent. The Internet has become a battleground."

RSF has taken the battle beyond China's borders, with appeals to world leaders to increase pressure regarding this human rights issue. Brossel believes the pressure works. "As China opens up, it has to watch its international image," he says.

For more info: www.rsf.org