Amnesty International has called on the Chinese to release people imprisoned for using the internet to express their views or share information.
It claims more than 30 people have been detained for net-related offences, two of whom died in custody.
In one case, a former police officer was sentenced to 11 years in prison after downloading articles from a democracy web site.
Amnesty's report, State Control Of The Internet In China, said in some extreme cases people could face the death sentence for publishing sensitive information online.
It said: "Everyone detained purely for peacefully publishing their views or other information on the internet or for accessing certain web sites are prisoners of conscience.
"They should be released immediately and unconditionally.
"Internet users are increasingly caught up in a tight web of rules restricting their fundamental human rights.
"Anyone surfing the internet could potentially be at risk of arbitrary detention and imprisonment."
This is no small matter when you consider the China Internet Network Information Centre estimates the number of web users soared by 12 million people in the first six months of this year to reach 45.8 million, second only to the United States.
Meanwhile, bad news for pandas as their numbers continue to decline, even though the Chinese have been spending millions to help spur births in captivity.
Since the first artificially-conceived cub was born in 1963, only 210 have been born in China and 20 overseas. Of these, only about half survived into adulthood.
Now software has been introduced to match pandas with their perfect mate.
The programme analyses their health and bloodlines in captivity to find a match but experts are unsure whether even this can offset captive pandas' low sex drive.
The Chinese are far more forthcoming about the plight of the pandas than the way they react to online activities of the population.
Captivity is undeserved for many web users and unproductive for most of the pandas.
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