Free speech and scientific groups have launched a campaign to free two Chinese scientists jailed for using the internet to promote democracy. Lin Hai, a Shanghai software engineer, was arrested in March for sending 30,000 Chinese email addresses to an internet pro-democracy newsletter, VIP Reference (CI No 3,464), while Wang Youcai, a Chinese physicist and dissident, was arrested last month on charges of trying to form an opposition party and emailing its documents to dissidents. A group of organizations, including the Association for Computing Machinery, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Human Rights in China have posted action alerts on their web sites. These alerts encourage people to email Chinese media and government organizations calling for the release of Lin and Wang.
