Fri, Sep 13, 2002 - Page 1 News List

China steps up Internet enforcement

AP AND REUTERS , SHANGHAI AND BEIJING

Meanwhile, The People's Daily has warned cellphone users they endanger society if they swap political rumors via text messages.

Television regulators have threatened to sack cadres at local stations should the banned Falun Gong movement take over their airwaves, fearing that broadcasts might be sabotaged during the congress.

The party's Central Publicity Department has muzzled even oblique criticism. It has stopped state presses from reprinting sold-out books about China's widening social inequities, although several had support from on high.

One was a contentious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences survey showing workers and peasants slumping to society's bottom rungs, above only the jobless.

Another new book addressing similar ills -- the rural-urban divide, the tax burden on farmers and official corruption -- was banned in August after selling out its first 10,000 copies.

The book passed the censors and won approval from high-ranking cadres who read it before publicity bureaucrats blacklisted it, said author Zhong Dajun.

"They said my book attacked China's constitution and the party's four basic principles, alienated workers and farmers and advocated Western values of human rights," the Beijing-based journalist-turned-economist said.

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