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Beijing (AFP) Feb 24, 2010 China's parliament on Wednesday considered possible changes to the nation's state secrets law, which is often used to jail political dissidents, state media reported. Xinhua news agency said the draft amendment would make the law more focused but gave no indication of its practical impact, such as whether it would give authorities more or less leeway in implementing the law. The draft defines state secrets as "information that concerns state security and interests and, if leaked, would damage state security and interests in the areas of politics, economy and national defence," Xinhua said. China's government has used the state secrets law to jail political dissidents who have voiced opposition to Communist Party rule. Rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told AFP a wide range of other people including businessmen and state employees also have been targeted by it. Australian executive Stern Hu of Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto mining group was initially charged with violating the state secrets law after he was detained in July last year. The arrest of Hu and three Chinese colleagues came during fraught iron ore negotiations and followed the snubbing by Rio of a proposed 19.5 billion US dollar investment from China's state-owned metals giant Chinalco. They are currently awaiting trial on charges of alleged bribery and commercial espionage. Chinese dissident Huang Qi was sentenced to three years in November on state secrets charges after investigating whether shoddy schools contributed to the heavy death toll in the 2008 quake in Sichuan province, his lawyers said. "A lot of people have been jailed under the current state secrets law. It is hard to say how many but the current law contains a lot of problems," Mo said. "Right now it is not clear whether or not the amended law, if passed, will help those political dissident facing state secret charges." The change was being deliberated this week by a committee of the National People's Congress, the nation's rubber-stamp legislature which opens its annual full session next week. Xinhua said the range of state secrets stipulated in the existing law was considered "too wide and vague." The draft makes clear that state secrets should be protected by law and "any act threatening the security of a state secret must be punished by law," it added.
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