China Kowtows to Blogosphere?
The Monday Washington Post reports that China has released three "Internet writers," but convicted another.

China released three Internet essayists who were detained a year ago for criticizing the government, including a college student in Beijing whose arrest on subversion charges had attracted international attention, a human rights group based in Hong Kong reported Sunday.

Liu Di, 23, a psychology student at Beijing Normal University known online by the pen name "Stainless Steel Mouse," and the two other writers were released Friday afternoon, the group reported. The same day, a court convicted a fourth writer charged in the case, Jiang Lijun, of subversion and sentenced him to four years in prison, his lawyer said.

Liu's father, Liu Qinghua, said by telephone that his daughter was released on bail but ordered not to speak to journalists. Frank Lu, director of the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said he spoke by telephone with one of the other writers, Wu Yiran, 34, and confirmed the release on bail of the third, Li Yibin, 29, through friends.

The releases come days before German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is scheduled to visit China and little more than a week before Premier Wen Jiabao's first state trip to the United States. China often releases political prisoners before or after important meetings with U.S. and European leaders to blunt criticism of its human rights record.

Before her Nov. 7 arrest last year, Liu managed a popular Web site and was known for posting satirical notes about the hypocrisy of China's ruling Communist Party. In one essay, she suggested that people sell Marxist literature on the streets like "real Communists." In another, she argued that China's repressive national security laws make the country less secure.

She also wrote essays pressing for the release of Huang Qi, a businessman who was arrested in 2000 for running an Internet site that carried items about the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion.

News of the arrest of the "Stainless Steel Mouse" spread quickly across cyberspace, and Internet users in China and abroad campaigned aggressively for her release. Three online petitions circulated in her behalf in China attracted thousands of signatures.

More on the story from Reuters and here from the PekingDuck.org blog. Background here from the Christian Science Monitor.