China act against Internet cafes
China act against Internet cafes
Agence France-Presse, Beijing
The Chinese government has ordered the re-registration of all
the nation's Internet cafes, state press said Saturday, amid
fears the move is designed to limit freedom of access to the
world wide web.
"Internet cafes without proper licenses are to be closed and
owners will be prosecuted. Those providing sites for Internet
cafes without permission will also face prosecution," Liu Yuzhu,
an official with the Ministry of Culture was quoted by the Xinhua
news agency as saying.
"Legal Internet cafes are also required to reregister by Oct.
1," he said.
All major dailies on Saturday carried reports on the re-
registration drive which begins July 1 and was approved by the
State Council following a June 16 fire at a Beijing cyber cafe
that killed 24 young people.
Victims of the fire at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe in Beijing's
university district were mostly students at nearby high schools
or universities. The fire was allegedly a revenge attack started
by two teenage arsonists.
The dead were trapped inside the cramped second-story cafe,
which did not have a license and had bars across its windows and
a single, locked exit. Another 13 people were injured, many
suffering terrible burns.
China has long expressed concern about "unhealthy" web content
and curbs access to many sites showing pornography, politically
subversive material, foreign news or information on spiritual and
religious groups such as the banned Falungong movement.
Rights groups have said that the government is using the fire
at the Beijing Internet cafe as a pretext to crackdown harder on
the Internet which has given Chinese web surfers unprecedented
access to information.
Chinese Internet cafes nationwide are also being ordered to
install software that can prevent access to up to 500,000 foreign
websites and which can tell police when web surfers access
illicit pages, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human
Rights and Democracy said.
Software like the "Filter King" program not only record the
number of times surfers try to access banned sites, but can also
send daily reports to local Internet police units, the center
said earlier this week.