US technology firms including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have come under fire for allegedly helping China monitor suspected dissidents.
The companies were accused of colluding with China at the Internet Governance Forum, a United Nations (UN) meeting held in Athens, Greece, this week.
Meanwhile, to scattered boos from other participants, a Chinese delegate who identified himself as a member of his country's mission to the UN said there were "no restrictions at all" on the flow of information in China.
However, the BBC said its websites were indeed being suppressed in several countries, including China and Iran. "[We] are blocked because we refuse to compromise on our reporting," said BBC Global News Director Richard Sambrook, drawing a parallel with the Cold War era, when the BBC had its short-wave radio jammed in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Monitoring dissidents
Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco Systems were all criticised at the four-day forum. "Yahoo compromised on their corporate policy in China, and a journalist was subsequently arrested," said Irish Senator Paschal Mooney, referring to the company's disclosure of one internet user's identity – an incident that landed the global search engine in trouble with human rights groups (see Amnesty International criticises US web companies)
But the companies struck back, arguing that their operations in China benefit millions of internet users by giving them greater access to information. "A year after our company entered China in 1994, China had 80,000 Internet users […] In 2005, it had 130 million users," said Art Reilly, of Cisco Systems, which was accused by Reporters Without Borders of allegedly selling technology enabling the Chinese police to monitor dissidents.
He added that he was "not familiar" with the sale of products to any specific entity within China and insisted that the technology made by Cisco ultimately ensured the flow of information within the country.
Microsoft's senior policy counsel Fred Tipson rode to Yahoo's defence, noting that if the company had declined the Chinese authorities' request, it would probably have been booted out of the country altogether.
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