Human Rights Watch demands global law to end complicity in 'Great Firewall' A leading human rights group has called for international legislation and a strong industry code to end western internet companies' 'complicity' in political censorship on the mainland. New York-based Human Rights Watch said it had documented the way 'extensive corporate and private sector co-operation - including by some of the world's major internet companies - enables this system of censorship'. 'Western internet companies are complicit in actively censoring political material without telling users what is happening and why,' said Rebecca MacKinnon, a consultant to the group. 'We believe that companies could act more ethically and still operate in China. It's time for internet companies to decide whether they want to be part of the problem or part of the solution.' Human Rights Watch said China's system of internet censorship and surveillance, known as 'the Great Firewall', involved tens of thousands of people employed by the government and was the most advanced in the world. The group's 149-page report focuses on the internet operations of Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Skype, which it said were 'complicit in the Chinese government's censorship', but added they were not the only companies doing this. The report sharply criticised the decision by Yahoo to release the names of private users to mainland authorities, arguing that the company had assisted in the imprisonment - with heavy sentences - of four critics of the central government: Shi Tao , Li Zhi, Jiang Lijun , and Wang Xiaoning . Human Rights Watch argued that Microsoft had censored searches and blog titles to avoid sensitive political topics, and deleted or blocked whole blogs that the group said were 'expressing peaceful political views'. The report said Skype's Chinese software was configured to censor sensitive words in text chats without informing users. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Yahoo vice-president Michael Samway argued that in the case of Shi, which resulted in a 10-year prison sentence, Yahoo China was required to provide information, just as it would have if such a request had been made in the US. The human rights organisation, however, said there were serious shortcomings in the Chinese criminal justice system, and the right to a fair trail and presumption of innocence had not yet become fully integrated. The organisation called on the US, the EU and other jurisdictions to pass legislation prohibiting companies from storing personal user data on servers in China. It said the purpose of the proposed legislation was not to stop foreign companies from operating in China, but rather that these companies 'not take part in or help censorship or the arrest of people involved in peaceful expression'. Yahoo, Microsoft and Google had argued that China's Web users had benefited from the greater access to the internet the companies provided, and that it was better for them to be on the mainland with limits than not at all.