” . . . The sight of the public security agent clumsily pursuing three students, a monk and an old woman was almost comically out of step with the times. But there was nothing funny about the risks they were taking. Ducking into a tatty old dormitory in one of Beijing’s most prestigious universities, the activists got to work on a project that could have led to their arrest and imprisonment.
In a tiny student room, one of them had connected three computers and linked them to the internet. From here they run a weekly chatroom for the most talked-about — and sometimes politically sensitive — issues of the day.”
This article discusses several recent cases of the harrassment that online dissenters receive from the Chinese government. Also mentioned are many interesting bits of information from referenced sources.