SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- Determined to extend its crackdown on dissent to cyberspace, China put a computer entrepreneur on trial Friday for giving e-mail addresses to a pro-democracy Internet magazine.
Shanghai's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court held a closed-door trial for Lin Hai on charges of subversion for giving addresses of 30,000 Chinese computer users to "VIP Reference," a journal published by Chinese dissidents in the United States."I'm afraid it doesn't look good for Lin Hai. I think he's going to be found guilty," his lawyer Wang Wenjiang said in a telephone interview after the four-hour trial.
Wang said the court would probably take a week to rule, and he could not say how severe the sentence might be.
Authorities maintained tight order for China's first Internet dissent trial.
Lin's lawyers were allowed in court with him, but others, including his wife Xu Hong, were barred. Xu had planned to wait outside court, but she did not arrive. She may have been detained by police.
A man's voice shouted "Hang up! Hang up!" when Xu was reached on her mobile telephone Friday, and the line went dead and afterward was switched off.
Outside the court today, police and plainclothes officers watched and videotaped foreign reporters. Reporters were not allowed inside the court gate.
The court did not plan to announce Lin's verdict publicly, said court administrator Ni Jinlong.
Lin, 30, the owner of a Shanghai software company, was arrested in March and charged the next month with "inciting the overthrow of state power."
The case marks a turning point in the Communist Party's attempt to harness the Internet.