2015年10月30日
65国网络自由度排行，中国倒数第一
黄安伟
北京——一份由美国著名民运组织发表的网络自由新报告显示：在研究的世界各国之中，中国的网络自由度排名垫底。
自由之家(Freedom House)最新的年度研究名为《2015年网上自由报告》(Freedom on the Net 2015)。当中列出了许多中国现有的限制网络自由措施，从加强网站审查制度的"防火长城"(Great Firewall)到对某类互联网言论的定罪。在65个国家里，中国成绩最差，排在伊朗，古巴和缅甸之后。（朝鲜不在报告研究的国家之列。）
"建立控制的目标尤为明显的方面在于，政府对外资互联网企业的态度、对数字安全协议的破坏、对用户权益的不断侵蚀，手段包括法外拘禁及以网上言论为由判处徒刑，"本周公布的报告指出。 "在《2015年网上自由报告》中，中国是世界上破坏网络自由最严重的国家。"
官方通讯社新华社周三报道，通过新的刑法，中国官方将能对在线炮制和传播"虚假信息"的人判处最高七年有期徒刑。中国官方近年动用了一系列法规来压制持不同政见者、阻滞资讯和传言的扩散，这是其中最新的一部。
将在周日生效的这部新法，明显增加了对那些被认定为散布谣言或政治敏感信息的人的惩罚力度。据新华社报道，类似行为之前适用的处罚属于行政而不是刑事范畴。在较早的行政法之下，断定为在网上散布谣言的人可被拘留5至10天，并处以最高500元人民币的罚款。
新法则规定，"编造虚假险情、疫情、灾情、警情，在信息网络或其他媒体上传播，或明知是上述虚假信息，故意在信息网络或其他媒体上传播，严重扰乱社会秩序的，处三年以下有期徒刑、拘役或者管制。"
新法还规定，"造成严重后果的，处三年以上七年以下有期徒刑。"
自2013年起，中国官方经常动用另一项刑事指控——"寻衅滋事" ——来监禁各种在网上发表言论的人，艺术家、作家和自由派律师，不一而足。最为人知晓的是去年被带走的维权律师浦志强一案。今年5月，他被检方指控煽动民 族仇恨及寻衅滋事，面临最高八年的刑期。其代表律师称，检方根据的是浦志强发表的28条微博帖子。这些帖子里有的批评了中国对少数民族维吾尔人实施的政 策。
"寻衅滋事"指控是在官方开展的大规模"反谣运动"里不断用到的一种严厉手段。反谣的目的是压制某些特定的网络言论。
今年夏天，中国发布了网络安全法草案。如获通过，政府已经用于打压网络活动的宽泛权力将会进一步正规化。这类权力包括关闭大片地区的大型网络。2009年，新疆首府发生涉及维吾尔人的骚乱，在此期间政府就采取了这一手段。整整一年，在占全国六分之一领土的新疆，政府只允许少数官方网站开放。
"网络安全法还处于讨论阶段，"北京外国语大学媒体研究教授展江说。"这表明，基于安全考量，将会有更多的网络法规出台。"
中国现时强调"网络主权"的重要性。在近几次与意欲进一步打开中国市场的外国互联网和媒体公司的高管会面时，负责中国国家互联网信息办公室的 官员鲁炜强调了这点。一些最著名的美国网站，包括谷歌(Google)，Facebook和Twitter，遭到了中国的封锁。（《纽约时报》的中英文网 站自2012年起也一直被封。）
近年来，中国在自由之家的年度报告里的排名稳步下降。去年，中国在65个国家里排名倒数第三，仅领先伊朗和叙利亚。今年的报告则指出："过去一年来，对控制信息的重新强调，引致了一些公然威胁网络自由的行为。"
黄安伟(Edward Wong)是《纽约时报》北京分社社长。
Vanessa Piao、Yingzhi Yang对本文有研究贡献。
翻译：赖淦梆（实习）、邓咏诗（实习）
Report Ranks China Last in Internet Freedom Among 65 Nations
By EDWARD WONG October 30, 2015
China ranks last in the world for openness among countries studied in a new report on Internet freedom by a prominent American pro-democracy group.
The report, "Freedom on the Net 2015," the latest such annual study by the group, Freedom House, lists the many ways in which China is restricting free access to the Internet, from strengthening its Great Firewall system of website censorship to criminalizing some kinds of Internet speech. China had the worst score of 65 nations — behind Iran, Cuba and Myanmar. (North Korea was not included in the report.)
"The aim of establishing control was particularly evident in the government's attitude toward foreign Internet companies, its undermining of digital security protocols, and its ongoing erosion of user rights, including through extralegal detentions and the imposition of prison sentences for online speech," says the report released this week. "China was the world's worst abuser of Internet freedom in the 2015 Freedom on the Net survey."
Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported on Wednesday that, through a new criminal law, Chinese officials will be able to punish a person creating and spreading "false information" online with a prison sentence of up to seven years. The law is the latest in an array of legal regulations that Chinese officials have used in recent years to silence political dissent and quash the spread of information and rumors.
The new law, which will take effect on Sunday, significantly increases the punishment for those judged to be spreading rumors or politically delicate information. The earlier punishment under a similar measure was an administrative one and not a criminal one, Xinhua reported. Under the earlier administrative law, a person convicted on the charge of spreading rumors online could be placed under detention for five to 10 days and fined as much as 500 renminbi, or about $80.
The new law says that people who "fabricate false information about hazards, diseases, disasters or crimes and spread it on information networks or other media, or deliberately spread it on information networks or other media while knowing it is false information, seriously disrupting social orders, will be sentenced to a prison term up to three years, placed under detention or face enforcement measures."
"In cases where serious consequences are caused, one will be sentenced to a prison term ranging from three to seven years," the new law says.
Since 2013, Chinese officials have often used another criminal charge, "picking quarrels and provoking trouble," to jail a wide range of people for online speech, from artists to essayists to liberal lawyers. The best-known case is that of Pu Zhiqiang, a civil rights defense lawyer who was detained last year. He was charged by prosecutors in May with inciting ethnic hatred and picking quarrels and provoking trouble, for which he faces up to eight years in prison. His lawyers said the prosecutors had built their case on 28 microblog posts he had written, some of which criticized China's policies toward the Uighurs, an ethnic minority.
The "picking quarrels" charge has been used as a harsh tool in a widespread official "antirumor campaign" whose aim is to silence certain kinds of Internet speech.
This summer, China released a draft law on cybersecurity that, if passed, would further formalize broad powers that the government already wields in clamping down on Internet activity. That includes shutting down the wider Internet in large regions, as the government did in 2009 during rioting involving ethnic Uighurs in the capital of the Xinjiang region. For a year, the government allowed access to only a few official websites across all of Xinjiang, which is one-sixth of the territory of China.
"The cybersecurity law is still under discussion now," said Zhan Jiang, a media studies professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. "It indicates that more regulations will be placed on the Internet out of security concerns."
China now emphasizes the importance of "cyberspace sovereignty." The official in charge of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Lu Wei, has stressed that idea in recent meetings with executives of foreign Internet and media companies that want greater access to the Chinese market. Some of the most popular American-run websites are blocked in China, including Google, Facebook and Twitter. (The New York Times has been blocked since 2012.)
China has been steadily falling in the annual Freedom House report in recent years. Last year, it ranked third from the bottom among 65 nations, ahead of Iran and Syria. This year's report says that "over the past year, the renewed emphasis on information control led to acts of unconcealed aggression against Internet freedom."
Vanessa Piao and Yingzhi Yang contributed research.
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