Fighting China's Golden Shield: Cisco Sued Over Jailing and Torture of Dissidents

Sydney Morning Herald | by Ahser Moses | 16 August 2011

Cisco, one of the world's largest technology companies, is being sued by Chinese political prisoners for allegedly providing the technology and expertise used by the Chinese Communist Party to monitor, censor and suppress the Chinese people.

Daniel Ward, of US law firm Ward & Ward, has brought the case on behalf of Du Daobin, Zhou Yuanzhi, Liu Xianbin and 10 unnamed others. He compared Cisco's actions to "IBM's behaviour in Nazi Germany".
Cisco has rejected the allegations as baseless but has failed to respond to serious questions stemming from an internal company presentation.

"Cisco has, for years now, knowingly aided and abetted the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing efforts to stifle the free speech and discourse of its citizenry," Mr Ward told Fairfax Media.

"Dating back to the early 2000s, Cisco competed for contracts with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to help design, develop and implement the 'Golden Shield Project' - a rather Orwellian euphemism for the Chinese Communist Party's ongoing effort to monitor, track and censor all internet traffic into and out of China."

According to court documents, Mr Du spent three years in jail, Mr Zhou is a prisoner in his own home and Mr Liu has served two months of a 10-year sentence. All three claim to have been tortured and abused over articles they published online.

The case, filed in the US District Court in Maryland, is reminiscent of lawsuits launched against Yahoo by human rights groups after the internet company gave details about users to the Chinese government. These details were used to throw journalists and dissidents in jail, where they were deprived of food and basic comforts, and were beaten.

In many cases, the Chinese citizens have been locked up for little more than internet postings criticising China's one-party system and advocating regime change.

Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, is serving an 11-year sentence in China for his political writings. Ironically, Cisco sponsored the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Concert.

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