[CS-FSLUG] NI: The Internet under surveillance, China.

[Fred A. Miller]

The Internet under surveillance
6 June 2005

CHINA

*Authorities declare war on unregistered websites and blogs*
*
*Reporters Without Borders voiced alarm today at the Chinese
government's announced intention to close down all China-based websites
and blogs that are not officially registered. The plan is all the more
worrying as the government has also revealed that it has a new system
for monitoring sites in real time and spotting those that fail to comply.

"The Chinese authorities use this type of announcement above all to
intimidate website operators and bloggers," the press freedom
organisation said. "The authorities also hope to push the most outspoken
online sites to migrate abroad where they will become inaccessible to
those inside China because of the Chinese filtering systems."

Reporters Without Borders added: "Those who continue to publish under
their real names on sites hosted in China will either have to avoid
political subjects or just relay the Communist Party's propaganda. This
decision will enable those in power to control online news and
information much more effectively."

The new initiative was announced in a decree issued by the ministry for
the information industry (MII) on 20 March, which said all China-based
websites - commercial or otherwise - would have to register by 30 June,
giving the complete identity of the persons responsible for the sites.
According to the authorities, the aim is to control information that
"endanger the country."

According to official figures, about 75 per cent of Chinese sites have
already complied with the new procedure. The Russian news agency/
Interfax/ reported that the ministry subsequently announced that a new
system called "Night Crawler" (Pa Chong, in Chinese) that allows the
authorities to locate and block unregistered sites would get under away
at the start of June.

At the request of the authorities, the Telecom operators that host the
biggest Chinese news portals informed their users that this procedure is
obligatory. In May, many bloggers received e-mail messages telling them
to register to avoid their blogs being declared illegal.

A China-based blogger told Reporters Without Borders on condition of
anonymity that the Shanghai police recently rendered his website
inaccessible because it had not been registered. He then phoned the MII
to ask what he had to do in order to register, and was told that in his
case it was "not worth bothering" because "there was no chance of an
independent blog getting permission to publish."

-- -- 

Julien Pain
Bureau Internet et libertés / Internet Freedom desk
___________________________________________

Reporters sans frontières / Reporters Without Borders
TEL: ++ 33 (0) 1 44 83 84 71
FAX: ++ 33 (0) 1 45 23 11 51
internet at rsf.org
www.internet.rsf.org

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