China Closes Popular Internet Forum Friday, February 5, 1999; 10:50 a.m.
EST BEIJING (AP) -- Less than five days after Chinese
authorities singled it out for criticism, a popular Internet bulletin board
has been shut down, a human rights group reported Friday. The bulletin board
service, ``Everything Under the Sun'' -- on a web page run by a Chinese
computer software company -- drew 60,000 messages in December and January,
the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic
Movement in China said. Message writers had become increasingly bold, even
discussing the 10th anniversary on June 4 of the military's violent quelling
of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, the group said. The movement and
its crushing are among the most sensitive political topics in China.
Communist Party leaders have never provided a credible accounting of the
dead and injured, nor allowed an investigation into the ordering of the
crackdown. On Jan. 27, the newspaper run by China's top prosecutor's office
criticized bulletin board services like ``Everything Under the Sun'' for
attacking government policies and leaders, the Information Center said. By
Feb. 1, the bulletin board had been shut down, the Information Center said.
A notice on the bulletin board Friday said people could still post messages
on a related service, a cultural forum sponsored by the official Beijing
Evening News. Chinese leaders have shown ambivalence about the Internet,
wanting to harness it for business and education while remaining wary of its
power for spreading dissent. A police directive issued last month ordered
police precincts nationwide to monitor bulletin board services and shut down
those with seditious messages, the human rights group reported.
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1999 The Associated Press
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