– Internet Take Over?

China frees Net dissidents
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam - CNN Senior China Analyst

Beijing has set free three Internet essayists in an apparent attempt to improve the atmosphere for Premier Wen Jiabao's important visit to the U.S. next week.

However, at least a dozen-odd dissidents who have posted "anti-government" articles on the Web remain incarcerated.

The freed dissidents are Liu Di, 27, a student from Beijing Normal University, Wu Yiran, 34, a graduate of Shanghai's Jiaotong University, and Li Yibin, 29, who ran a Web site called Democracy and Liberty.

According to the Hong Kong based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, they were detained about a year ago for alleged efforts to "subvert the administration."

The center said the release was probably timed for the Beijing visit this week by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as well as Wen's American tour.

It said the family of Liu, the most famous of the three, had been instructed by authorities not to talk to overseas media.

Liu, who went by the pen-name Stainless Steel Mouse, had been held for a year without being charged.

Meanwhile, the official media reported Monday that the legal system had "dealt with" 1,967 cases involving 4,060 suspects who had been held by the police without due process of law.

The media quoted the President of the Supreme People's Court Gao Yang, as saying that all cases of improper detention must go through the judicial system by the end of the year -- and those found not guilty by the courts must be released at once.

Sources in China's dissident circles said the leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen wanted to project an image of tolerance even though there was no evidence that the "Fourth Generation" cadres were significantly more liberal than retired president Jiang Zemin.

Apart from the dozen-odd Internet essayists who are still detained, several big-name intellectuals who are vocal advocates of political reform and constitutional changes have been put under tight police surveillance.