Man jailed for selling VPNs to evade China’s ‘Great Firewall’
Fears among some VPN users on the mainland over whether they will also face punishment for using the services to get round internet censorship
A man has been sentenced to nine months in jail for selling virtual private networks to circumvent internet censorship, amid Beijing’s tightening crackdown on ways to get around its “Great Firewall”.
Deng Jiewei, a 26-year-old from Dongguan in Guangdong province, was convicted of “providing software and tools for invading and illegally controlling the computer information system”, according to court documents posted on a website run by the Supreme People’s Court.
Deng had been selling two VPNs via his website since October 2015, and was first detained in August last year. He and a partner made nearly 14,000 yuan (HK$16,700) selling the software, which allowed users to “visit foreign websites that could not be accessed by a mainland IP address”, the judgment said.
Deng was sentenced in March, but the online court documents were only circulated on social media on Sunday.
Posts about Deng’s case have been shared by thousands of people on Weibo drawing anger as well as concern about the treatment of VPN users.
What’s on Weibo, a blog tracking social trends in China, first reported Weibo users’ discovery of Deng’s case on Sunday.