[www.theepochtimes.com]- China’s State Council Information Office and related information offices launched a special internet censorship campaign in January. Some porn sites have reopened recently, while the famous Niubo Web site and Fatianxia Web site, both known for giving true and sensitive information, were still banned by the authorities.
Analysts said that the regime has been using the excuse of eradicating low and vulgar content in cyberspace to crackdown on cyber-dissidents.
Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that the China Human Rights Defender site (wqzgw.com) was attacked several times. The webmaster, Qiu Feng, told a RFA reporter on Thursday that the website was shut down for 24 hours because the site was attacked.
“Now I have two sites, but one of them was indeed attacked. Mainly because we have been exposing the regime’s corruption and some human rights issues, and they crashed our server by bombarding us with a large amount of fake visits. So our provider shut down our website.”
Established at the end of 2007, China Human Rights Defender used a service provider in China. It has been shut down several times by the Chinese authorities for publishing sensitive articles. Later, it was also blocked by China’s popular search engines, such as Baidu, Yahoo, and Sogou.
Qiu Feng told the RFA reporter that they had thought about giving up after the site was attacked and closed down; however, an investigation later revealed that several pornographic sites were still in operation.
China’s state media reported that authorities had closed 1,646 illegal websites carrying pornographic content. The regime’s mouthpiece, Xinhu News, reported on February 19, that 32 websites with low and vulgar content were also shut down.
Mr. Liu Yiming, member of the Independent Chinese Pen Center, is very familiar with website operations. He told RFA that ****.com, which was reported by the Xinhu News as being shut down, had been reopened while carrying many pornographic pictures.
Mr. Liu said, “I’ve discovered that many porn sites have been reopened after being shut down. This shows that the authorities’ claim of eradicating and managing low and vulgar websites was just an excuse. Their basic goal was to crackdown on those websites that dare to speak the truth. The Niubo Web site could not be reopened after being shut down. Even after changing its web address and switching to an overseas proxy server, it was still blocked by authorities, and Mainland Chinese are not able to have direct access unless they are able to use a proxy server. A lot of websites contain pornographic materials which cannot possibly escape the eyes of cyber police, and yet they do not block these websites. What matters the most to them is sensitive, political content.”
An RFA reporter visited ****.com on March 27, and found that the website was not only reopened, it also hosted many nude pictures of famous female movie stars, while Niubo Web and Fatianxia Web were no longer accessible.
Ling Cangzhou, a veteran media worker had this to say about the Chinese authorities’ internet censorship, “The shutting down of porn sites should follow legal procedures. Using administrative power to shut down so many websites is bound to create side effects for freedom of speech. I personally do not acknowledge the way they shut down websites without legal procedures.”