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China raises fines, police powers to help control crowds

China's government has raised fines and increased police powers under a new rule intended to improve crowd control at sports events, festivals at temples and other popular public activities less than one year before the Beijing Olympics.

The new regulation, signed by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and issued by the State Council on Friday, lays out procedures for obtaining permits to hold events and holds organizers responsible for any mishaps.

The rule underscores the difficulties the government faces in controlling a society remade by economic reforms.

Only a generation ago, large public gatherings were suspect and carefully controlled by police. Today, sporting events, concerts and massive Christian and Buddhist prayer meetings are common in China.

"With a large number of participants, large-scale mass activities present more security problems and high risks," an unidentified official with the State Council's legislative affairs office said in a report issued late on Friday.

Xinhua said more than 14,000 large-scale events with more than 1,000 participants each are held every year in China.

Under the rule, the organizers of gatherings of more than 1,000 people face fines of at least 100,000 yuan (US$13,000) if they do not first obtain permits and could be fined 10,000 yuan if they change the event's scale, time or content without notifying police.

The rule also orders police and other security agencies to work out detailed plans to deal with emergencies and contingencies and reaffirms their authority to charge event organizers with criminal offenses should gatherings turn violent.

The regulation, which was posted on the government's main Web site, does not specifically refer to the Olympics. But in the run-up to next August's games and in the wake of China's initial mishandling of outbreaks of SARS in 2003 and avian influenza in 2004, Beijing has been hurrying to adopt a string of crisis management procedures.
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