By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 19, 2010

Filed at 11:15 a.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- Lin Xiuying believes her daughter bled to death
after being gang-raped two years ago by a group of thugs that had
ties to the police in their southern Chinese town.

For more than a year, the illiterate mother appealed to various
government departments in Fujian province's Mingqin county,
pleading for someone to take a closer look at the death of
25-year-old Yan Xiaoling that police blamed on an ectopic
pregnancy.

Lin, 50, was sobbing outside a government office last summer
when she met self-taught legal expert Fan Yanqiong. Fan took down
the details of the case from Lin and then posted them online. Two
others, You Jingyou and Wu Huaying, spoke to the mother and posted
their video interview online.

On Friday, the three were in court awaiting a verdict on charges
of making false accusations, which carries a sentence of up to
three years in jail.

It is the latest example of Chinese Internet users being
targeted for their budding grass-roots activism -- ordinary people
spreading the word about grievances from every corner of the
country with postings on
Twitter, microblogs and other Web
sites.

''Netizens are using the Internet to talk about injustice,''
said Liu Xiaoyuan, You's lawyer. ''But local officials just use
their public power to suppress them.''

Dozens of bloggers showed up outside Mawei Distrist People's
Court on Friday in Fuzhou city where the verdict was to be
announced, tweeting constantly and posting photos from the scene
online. They reportedly were met by more than 100 uniformed and
plainclothes police. The case was indefinitely postponed.

China blocks online materials it deems to be harmful or
pornographic, which frequently includes information that
contradicts the views of the ruling Communist Party. Such
restrictions prompted Internet giant Google to announce in January
that it may close China-based Google.cn because it no longer wanted
to cooperate with Beijing's Internet censorship.

But there is a vibrant community of tech-savvy users who can
easily hop over the ''Great Firewall'' that blocks access to sites
like
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
They are a minority of the 384 million people online in China but
among the most vocal: young, educated, liberal-minded and unafraid
of questioning the Communist government.

Twitter in particular has been harnessed by Chinese users who
revel in having a forum where they can speak freely about
politically sensitive matters -- in 140 characters or less, of
course.

''With the help of new technology, it's become quite common and
convenient for citizens to exercise their right of supervising the
government. It's always hard to publish articles in traditional
media and it's much easier to do so on the Internet,'' said Zhou
Ze, a law professor at China Youth University for Political Science
who has spoken out about detentions related to online comments.

Those arrested or detained for trying to help Lin are just the
latest to be punished for their activism.

Wang Shuai was detained in Shanghai after speaking out online
about land confiscation in his hometown in central China's Henan
province. Wu Baoquan was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in jail for
criticizing -- also online -- a land compensation plan in his Inner
Mongolian village.

But there have been a few victories, too.

Authorities dropped charges against a man in the eastern
province of Shandong who was detained after accusing his local
Communist Party secretary of corruption. An unpopular garbage
incinerator project in the southern city of Guangzhou has been put
on hold. A karaoke bar waitress went unpunished after fatally
stabbing a drunk government official who cornered her and demanded
sex. Each case got strong attention from Chinese citizens online as
details spread through blogs and forums.

Guo Baofeng, who works as a translator in the southern city of
Xiamen, was among those taken away by police after posting a video
interview of Lin on an overseas Web site. He became famous among
Chinese netizens for sending Twitter updates while in police
custody.

''Pls help me, I grasp the phone during police sleep,'' and ''i
have been arrested by Mawei police, SOS,'' he tweeted in English
from his cell phone, avoiding Chinese characters that take longer
to input. Guo was released from detention after about three weeks,
though he is still under police monitoring.

Lin, the mother, does not have a deep understanding of the
Internet or its workings, but knows that it is helping to keep her
daughter's case in the public eye. Poor and uneducated, she can do
little other than try to support those who helped spread the word
of her plight by attending their court hearings.

''The authorities take advantage of us because I'm illiterate
and have no money or family connections,'' she said. ''Thankfully
there are reporters and citizens helping me. They've helped so much
and I hope they can keep helping us.''