China launches campaign against pornography

Beijing: The Chinese government has
kicked-started a two-month long campaign against pornography
materials following adverse social consequences.

"Despite previous crackdowns, pornography, especially
that on compact discs, are showing a tendency to rebound as
many sellers hawk porn videos right outside computer shopping
malls," an official statement said.

It said in some cities, "even porns starring minors are
available for sales, resulting in extremely serious harm to
society".

According to the National Office against Pornographic and
Illegal Publication, the campaign from September 5 to November
5 will focus on enterprises, stores, websites and vagabond
merchants that are involved in the sale of porn disks in large
cities, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

It noted that the supply chains for some websites have
not been completely cut off, and an increasing number of
illegal advertisements with obscene content are posted on porn
websites.

During the campaign, local anti-porn offices have been
asked to cooperate with press and publication bureaus, police
and local government departments in cracking major cases.

Last month, the Ministry of Public Security announced
that China and the US jointly shut down a chain of
pornographic websites, all of which were in Chinese and
advertised to Chinese-speaking individuals in China, the US
and elsewhere.

Wang Yong, a key operator of porn websites, was arrested
in the US on June 23 by police, while in China more than 10
people suspected of maintaining the websites were detained.

China launched a special campaign in December 2009
against pornographic and vulgar content on the Internet,
including the mobile Internet.

More than 60,000 pornographic websites were shutdown in
the first 11 months of last year.

PTI