"Governments that are very concerned about the freedom of the Internet should absolutely step up now in terms of sending a message to the Chinese government," said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China.

"Governments and the industry should send a very clear message to China that it must provide a business environment for foreign companies that doesn't force them to violate human rights," she told AFP.

"Google is standing there alone," she said. Others "must step up to the plate and address this as a collective industry Internet challenge. They can't just say it's a Google problem."

Google on Tuesday said it would stop automatically redirecting mainland Chinese users to an unfiltered search site in Hong Kong, a process it began in March in response to censorship and cyberattacks it claims came from China.

Instead, mainland users who visit Google.cn would have to manually click a link to access the Hong Kong site.

"It's clear from conversations we have had with Chinese government officials that they find the redirect unacceptable -- and that if we continue redirecting users, our Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence will not be renewed," Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said on the company's blog.

"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self-censor and, we believe, with local law," Drummond wrote.

Google's ICP licence comes up for renewal on Wednesday, and it re-submitted its application based on what it called its "new approach," he added.

Human Rights in China's Hom said "what Google appears to be trying to do is this technology maneuver that preserves and gives them a shot at getting their license renewed."

"They're not changing the picture of what people can get, they're changing a little bit how they get to it," she said.

"Whether that's going to go down with the Chinese authorities is another question," Hom said. "It's hard to predict."

Google's decision met with a mixed reaction in technology circles.

Writing on popular US technology blog TechCrunch, M.G. Siegler said Google is "sort of backing down" and described it as a "little disappointing."

"Google's position is clearly that they're not ready to fully give up on China just yet," he said.

"While they're still refusing to censor (which Chinese law requires), they are willing to stop the redirect which China finds 'unacceptable,'" he said.

"The power of Google's initial message was anchored by the fact that they said they were ready to leave China and shut down google.cn if it came to that," Siegler said. "Now that it has come to that, and it's clear they're not going to do that anytime soon, it's just a little disappointing."

Jacqui Cheng at another technology blog, Ars Technica, expressed doubt the Chinese authorities would accept the new arrangement.

"Google thinks this might be enough to appease the government and get them to renew Google's ICP license," Cheng wrote. "We'll see. Google is trying to have its cake and eat it, too; the Chinese government, while sometimes deluded, is not stupid."

earlier related report
EU, China voice 'differences' on human rights: Spain
Madrid (AFP) June 29, 2010 - The European Union and China voiced "differences of opinion" during talks on human rights in Madrid Tuesday that included discussion of the situations in the Tibet and Xinjiang regions, the Spanish foreign ministry said.

The EU also used the opportunity to hand over to China "a list of individual cases" of alleged human rights violations that it is concerned about, the ministry said in a statement, without elaborating.

The EU-China human rights dialogue has been taking place about every six months since 1995. Spain hosted the latest round as it holds the six-month rotating presidency of the bloc.

On the eve of the talks, human rights groups urged the EU to use the meeting to demand Beijing release dissidents, withdraw curbs on freedom of expression and end "arbitrary detentions."

The Spanish foreign ministry said the meeting "provided a platform for an intense and candid exchange of views... on a wide range of human rights issues."

It was "an occasion to express concerns and differences of opinion with regard to the implementation of international human rights standards in China and the EU."

It said key issues discussed included the situations in China's Tibet and Xinjiang regions.

Xinjiang's ethnic Uighurs -- a Muslim, Turkic-speaking people -- have for decades complained of Chinese political, religious and cultural oppression in the vast region abutting Central Asia.

That anger burst out into savage unrest in July 2009 in Urumqi, when Uighurs attacked members of China's dominant Han ethnic group in violence that left nearly 200 people dead, according to government figures.

China has blamed the unrest on "separatists" but provided no evidence of any organised terrorism.

Amnesty International Spain on Monday condemned the "arrest and arbitrary detention" of thousands of Uighurs in Xinjiang and called for an "independent and impartial investigation into the events of July 2009."

It also condemned the "severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association and religion in Tibet" since Beijing's March 2008 crackdown in the region.

Tuesday's talks also covered "North Korean refugees, internet freedom and the ratification by China of the" International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

China raised the issue of migrant workers in the EU, "instigation of racial hatred against ethnic minorities by political parties, unemployment and discrimination against ethnic minorities, as well as the use of torture in the fight against terrorism..," the statement said.

The EU delegation was led by Jorge Domecq, the director general of the Spanish foreign ministry, while China's was headed by his counterpart from Beijing, Chen Xu.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged on Monday that the EU-China dialogue has "consistently failed" to produce substantive results because it is not linked to other issues such as trade, investment and the environment.

"For too long, the EU-China human rights dialogue has been a toothless talk shop which has failed to meaningfully address the Chinese government's poor record on human rights," Sophie Richardson, HRW's Asia advocacy director, said in a statement.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News