Monday, June 13, 2011
Du Daobin
When Cisco Systems helped China build its program for censoring and spying on Internet communications, it became an accomplice in the arrest and torture of political dissidents, according to a lawsuit filed against the high-tech company.
Three Chinese citizens, Du Daobin, Zhou Yuanzhi and Liu Xianbin, along with 10 other anonymous plaintiffs, are suing Cisco and seeking damages for human rights violations, including torture and false imprisonment.
Cisco provided technology that went into the creation of the Golden Shield Project, a sophisticated system of Internet filters and censors more commonly known as the “Great Firewall of China.”
With the aid of that system, the Chinese government was able to track down the plaintiffs and throw them into prison. There, they were “tortured, subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, and/or subjected to forced labor,” according to the litigation.
Du was prosecuted for writing internet articles that criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and called for fair treatment of farmers. He continues to be restricted to Yingcheng City.
Zhou, who is currently under house arrest, was prosecuted for publishing internet articles about human rights and democracy. Liu was charged with the same pro-democracy, pro-human rights “offenses.” He is two months into a ten-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion of state power.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky
Torture Victims Say Cisco Systems Helped China Spy on & Hound Them (by Ryan Abbott, Courthouse News Service)
Du Daobin v. Cisco Systems (U.S. District Court, Maryland) (pdf)
Arab Dictatorships Use McAfee and Other U.S. Technology to Censor Internet and Spy (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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