--- begin forwarded text Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 14:37:56 +0100 To: e-money@moving-art-studio.com From: jens-ingo <jens.ingo.brodesser@euronet.be> Subject: [e-money] Press Review IV: E-mail trail Sender: owner-e-money@mail.serve.com Reply-To: owner-e-money@moving-art-studio.com MOVING ART STUDIO LIST: E-MONEY http://www.moving-art-studio.com/ ================================= found in wired news on 16 dec 1998 pst http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/16485.html ==================== start quoted text ==================== China Delays Net Trial Reuters 7:35 a.m. 25.Nov.98.PST SHANGHAI -- China has delayed the closed-door trial of a man accused of using the Internet to undermine the state, and on Wednesday his wife called for an open court hearing. Lin Hai, a 30-year-old computer engineer, had been scheduled to go on trial on Thursday. He is accused of inciting subversion of state power, but a Shanghai court has postponed the case indefinitely, said Lin's wife, Xu Hong. "They did not say when it might get underway," Xu told Reuters. "When it starts, I would want it to be in open court so there would be public scrutiny." Lin, who was arrested in March, has been accused of using the Internet to send tens of thousands of email addresses to VIP Reference, a dissident publication based in the United States. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison. The case was to be heard in a closed-door session at the Shanghai Number One Intermediate Court. Even the defendant's wife was to be barred from court. "Of course I believe I should be at the trial," Xu said. "But the hearing should be open to the public as well." The court offered no explanation for its sudden decision to postpone the hearing, but Xu said it could be a result of international interest in the case. The case has been ignored by the official Chinese media but has attracted widespread attention abroad. Some 1.2 million Chinese are on the Internet, and the total is expected to reach 5 million by 2000. The government has embraced the Internet, but so have a number of dissident groups. VIP Reference, one of many dissident publications that have sprung up online, says it sends information to 250,000 email accounts in China from various email addresses in the United States. Court documents called VIP Reference a hostile foreign organization, and claimed it used data provided by Lin "to disseminate large numbers of articles aimed at inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system." Lin ran a now-defunct software company that set up Web sites and provided job searches for multinational companies. His supporters say he frequently exchanged or purchased email addresses to build up a database for his online job search business. Copyright© 1998 Reuters Limited. ==================== end quoted text ==================== ================================== You are subscribed to the list e-money. To *un*subscribe simply send mail to e-money@moving-art-studio.com *message text: subscribe or unsubscribe* --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'