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MARCO WERMAN: The Chinese have taken to the Internet in a big way; nearly 300 million people are now online in China. But Chinese leaders aren't celebrating and that's because the Internet provides a platform for Chinese citizens to criticize their government. An example of that is an online petition called Charter O8. The World's Mary Magistad in Beijing reports on the Charter and some who've signed it have run afoul of Chinese authorities.

MARY MAGISTAD: When Charter O8 was launched about a month ago online it had more than 300 signatures, most of them were from lawyers and intellectuals. The government promptly arrested the main author and then questioned or detained about a hundred who had signed Charter O8. If the idea was to intimidate others into not signing, it didn't work. Seven thousand people have now signed the Charter. One was Shanghai blogger Xiaozhao. She posted this entry on her blog. She said, "We all grew up by feeding on 'political melamine.' Fear has been consolidated into stones in our bodies, causing pain from time to time. We are lucky to be still living." Xiaozhao said at first she felt enough of this fear that she didn't sign Charter O8. She just posted information about it online, but Chinese censors kept deleting her postings. So she changed her mind and signed the Charter. Lawyer Li Huaping did not sign. He's been detained and beaten up in the past for taking on sensitive human rights cases and he says while adding his name to 7,000 others on the Charter wouldn't make much difference, his being able to defend human rights cases does. Still Li thinks Charter O8 is an important response to the problems in Chinese society.

LI HUAPING: [TRANSLATION] There's the gap between rich and poor, the unfair judicial system and corruption. At the same time Chinese citizens have a growing awareness of their rights. If they can't vote to select their own government they'll feel removed from the political realm and they'll feel oppressed and unhappy and there'll be more and more resentment.

MAGISTAD: Charter O8 calls for amending China's constitution to allow free elections, but that's
a non-starter for China's leaders. Law Professor Tong Bao was one of the first to put his signature on Charter O8. Soon after police called him in to tell him he was in violation of Chinese law.

TONG BAO: [TRANSLATION] They told me signing Charter O8 is illegal, because the Constitution says all Chinese citizens must follow the Communist Party, so advocating any steps other than following the Communist Party is against the constitution.

MAGISTAD: Then again, China's constitution also gives citizens the right to free speech. But 20 police, including Beijing's Security Chief, took a human rights activist from his home this past weekend. The reason? He had drafted a human rights report. The main drafter of Charter O8, Literature Professor Liu Xiaobo has himself been in detention for a month now. In an earlier interview Liu told me, "It's just a matter of time before China's leaders will have to accept that Chinese society has moved beyond their ability to dupe, intimidate and silence it."

LIU XIAOBO: [TRANSLATION] It is not like in Mao's era where if they fired you, you lost everything. Now, people can find their own jobs and move from one place to another and the diversified economy has led to a society with more diverse opinions and values. People feel they have the right to have their own opinions; they're not willing to just listen to government propaganda.

MAGISTAD: A case in point, an open letter signed by 20 lawyers and academics came out this week. It calls for a boycott of China's state-run television and accuses it of trying to brainwash people. The letter was written by Ling Cangzhou. Ling says, "State-run central television produces biased and distorted news and ignores important events and serious social problems. So," he says, "We've exercised our right to raise the issue." All this may leave the government pining for the days when nationalistic Chinese joined Chinese Central Television in attacking the western media's coverage of the Tibet crackdown last spring. 2009 is, after all, a year of sensitive anniversaries including the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown and the 60th Anniversary of the Communist Party's taking power. All this and an economic crisis too, are putting the Chinese government in a defensive mode. It's playing something like a game of "whack a mole." Outspoken citizens keep popping up and the government could find it hard to keep hammering all of them back down. For The World, I'm Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing.

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