(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Chinese Information Industry Minister Wi Jichuan, RSF protested the new restrictive regulation regarding Chinese news web sites and chat rooms. This law confirms the authorities’ efforts to impose the same censorship on the Internet that exists for printed and broadcast media, and to oblige news web sites to publish […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Chinese Information Industry Minister Wi Jichuan, RSF protested the new restrictive regulation regarding Chinese news web sites and chat rooms. This law confirms the authorities’ efforts to impose the same censorship on the Internet that exists for printed and broadcast media, and to oblige news web sites to publish only news from state-owned media. “With this new law, China now has one of the most restrictive legal mechanisms in the world to control the free flow of information over the Internet,” noted Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “To force web sites to publish only news from an official media prevents the Chinese people from having access to pluralistic and free information,” added Ménard. Finally, RSF asked for the release of three web dissidents, Qi Yanchen, Huang Qi and Jiang Shihua, currently jailed in China. In August 1999, RSF referred to China as one of the twenty enemies of the Internet in the world (see IFEX alerts of 21 September, 13 July, 26, 7 and 5 June, 7 and 3 March and 26 January 2000, 30 and 3 September, 21 and 20 January 1999 and 9 December 1998).
According to information collected by RSF, on 6 November 2000, the government published a new regulation on the content of Chinese news web sites and chatrooms. The text stipulates that web sites which want to disseminate news must seek permission from the Information Office under the State Council’s jurisdiction. With this new law, web sites can only publish online news from state-owned media, meaning news that has already been censored. Foreign media news cannot be put online without official agreement. Moreover, web sites will be held responsible if they publish “subversive information”. The official news agency Xinhua noted that “nobody can spread information that is in contradiction with the Constitution, that threatens State security, undermines the unity between ethnic groups and spreads heretic ideas, pornography, violence”. These measures also apply to chatrooms. Persons convicted of violating the law, mostly web site owners, face administrative sanctions, fines or jail sentences, depending on the gravity of the offence.
Since the beginning of the year, the Chinese government has passed several laws concerning the Internet. In January, a law concerning “State secrets on the Internet” was announced, providing for very heavy jail sentences. In October, another law gave the authorities the right to sanction providers that do not control and censor the content of their sites.
