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China tightens Net on Tibet |
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Written by Clifford Coonan
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Monday, 17 March 2008 |
CHINA – The Great Firewall of China has been reinforced to stop the
flow of information about Tibetan independence protests spreading on
the mainland.
Beijing authorities have stepped up their restrictions
on internet access following the riots, with YouTube blocked and users
in Beijing complaining of difficulty accessing a number of websites.
The Google-owned YouTube hosted dozens of videos of the recent protests
in Tibet of foreign news reports, as well as photos series and footage
of protests from overseas Tibetan demonstrations.
Domestic websites such as youku.com and tudou.com
have not carried any coverage of the riots but the Chinese media is
reporting the riots in Tibet and neighbouring provinces, in which
scores of people have reportedly been killed.
The coverage has been extremely critical of the Tibetan independence
movement. The official news agency Xinhua is reporting that 10 died in
the riots, which they blamed on "vandals" in the employ of the "Dalai
clique", referring to the Tibetan spirtual leader Dalai Lama, who was
forced to flee the Himalayan enclave after a failed uprising in 1959.
There are 210 million internet users in China and counting, with its
internet market set to overtake the United States in terms of numbers
of webizens at some stage this year.
The
Chinese government is keen to take advantage of the commercial and
education opportunities offered by the internet, but is less
enthusiastic about the forum it offers for potential dissent and the
fact that so much pornography is carried online.
The BBC website is blocked in China, although BBC World can be accessed
in hotels and diplomatic compounds. Trigger words such as Tibet or
Dalai Lama can prompt a message saying the site cannot be accessed.
Online
video is strictly controlled under new rules introduced at the end of
January, which restrict video-sharing to state-owned companies,
although the government said companies already existing before the
legislation could continue to operate.
© Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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