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PARIS (Reuters) - Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng sent e-mail messages to Beijing from Paris Thursday to protest against official controls over the Internet and harassment of ''cyber-dissidents'' by China.
Wei, sitting before a screen in a cyber cafe in the French capital, e-mailed the text of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which China is a signatory and which guarantees freedom of speech, to five official or government-linked addresses.
They were the Chinese Foreign Ministry, CCTV state television, the Chinese Internet information center and Peoples's Daily and China Daily newspapers.
``They have the power and the money but we have imagination and justice on our side,'' said the exiled dissident, who now lives in the United States.
The demonstration was backed by the French press rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which said Chinese security authorities controlled use of the Internet by forcing Chinese cybernauts to register with police and by setting up filters to prevent access to sites deemed subversive.
RSF said a dissident Qi Yanchen had been in prison since early this month for preparing to reproduce information about human rights received by Internet.
It said he risked 10 years prison.
Lin Hai, a Shanghai computer technician was sentenced earlier this year to two years jail for similar actions, RSF said.
RSF said the Beijing Public Security Bureau recently sent a circular to police and Communist Party officials urging extreme vigilance about the use of Internet by Chinese citizens.
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