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| Virtual police: Cautionary image issued last month. Beijing Public Security Bureau/China Daily/Reuters |
Why China shut down 18,401 websites
A fresh censorship wave is linked to next month's Party Congress.
from the September 25, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Responding to the new campaign, one website, "Xiucai," has posted an ironic "patriotic" banner urging readers to "Joyfully welcome the 17th Party Congress, building a harmonious society together. Xiucai is a good comrade. This site has temporarily shut down comments and forum features."
Although no accurate figures are available, some Internet experts estimate that as many as half the sites hosted in China that offer interactive features have been blocked in recent weeks.
"I cannot find any law to support such action," says Mr. Mao. "I wonder if anyone is using current law to defend their rights" against recent government moves to shut down servers.
The law, however, has not proved of much assistance to Liu Xiaoyuan, a lawyer who sued his ISP last month for censoring articles about current legal cases posted on his blog.
Mr. Liu complained that Sohu.com, one of China's biggest blog-hosting sites, had blocked access to nine recent posts he has put up. All he received by way of explanation, he says, were e-mails from Sohu.com's customer service center stating that the posts had been hidden "for certain reasons."
"My posts did not break any law or regulation, nor did they violate my user agreement with Sohu," says Liu. All bloggers on Sohu must pledge not to "damage the nation's reputation or attack the party or government," "violate Chinese traditional virtues," or "damage social stability," among 14 specific limitations.
"Maybe my perspective is different from CCTV or Xinhua," says Liu, referring to the state-owned TV and news agency. "But as long as I did not break any law or regulation, Sohu has an obligation to publish all of my articles," says Liu. "I think they breached our contract."
The Haidian district court in Beijing threw out his suit, he says, ruling that it did not meet required criteria to be heard. But he appealed last week to a higher court. "I want to send a message to all Chinese bloggers that when our rights are violated we have a right to sue these websites," he says. "And I want to know the reasons for which Sohu blocked my articles. They have subjective standards that I am ignorant of."
Confusion over what is permitted
Bloggers in China have long puzzled over what is and what is not allowed by the censors that operate at various levels, ranging from automatic filters that block posts containing sensitive keywords to "Net Nannies" employed by the larger Web-hosting services.
Different companies use different standards. Liu's nine articles, for example, appeared on the blog he operates on Sina.com, even though they were deleted by censors at Sohu.com.
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