We have heard that Communist Chinese Party (CCP) has long tried to control the internet, especially since they have lost four million members to the Falun Gong, through reading the "Nine Commandments" on the Internet.

Now the Chinese Communist Party has gained the help of US companies CISCO, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL to control the use of the internet. CISCO and Microsoft have designed the software whereas AOL and Yahoo have applied it to the Internet. Filters are put into software to block the use of words like 'democracy', 'human rights', 'Tibet independence' and - especially - 'Falun Gong'.

The Falun Gong is a non-religious group going back to traditional Chinese practices that has published the "Nine Commandments " through its publication "The Epoch Times". The Falun Gong started in 1992 and because it became so popular was banned by the Chinese Communist Party six years ago. Since then around 2,500 people with links to the movement have been murdered and another 100,000 jailed.

The Chinese with 100 million online, are the second largest users of the internet in the world. This new computer technology has emerged fast upon the new upper and middle class and caught the Communist Chinese hierarchy by surprise.

In the capital city the Beijing Security Service Corporation, which is run by the police, has set up the Beijing Internet Security Service and is hiring 4,000 members to monitor the Internet.

Dissident Chinese journalist Shi Tao was convicted and jailed for 10 years due to information provided by Yahoo!'s Hong Kong subsidiary. Tao was accused of "illegally providing state secrets abroad". Reporters Without Borders stated that the information Tao had provided was not "threaten China's national security" but also that Yahoo! collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese Communist regime but is a police informant as well.

Joel Chipkar, spokesman for the Falun Gong in Toronto said, "this has been going on for a while. We are very sad when commercial concerns get involved with aiding oppression. There is something very wrong with this kind of activity. We manage, however, to get our message out by using phones, faxes and personal communication."

It is one thing to trade with a police state. Quite another is to be involved in its means of controlling its people and helping in the process to imprison them.

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