A Chinese legislator calls for the early addition of a clause to
the existing "Criminal Law" in a bid to ban the production, copying
and spread of pornographic material on the Internet, which has been
going rampant in recent years.
Tong Haibao, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC)
and a local chief procurator from Ma'anshan city of east China's
Anhui Province, said that online production, marketing and
transmission of pornographic material was much more influential,
faster and therefore more hazardous than any traditional way of
production, spread of pornographic material.
He accused some of China's commercial Internet content providers
of using a variety of pornographic materials, such as pornographic
pictures and "sex guides", to attract netizens.
By January of 2003, China's websites totaled 370,000 with a
combined population of approximately 60 million netizens, 17.6
percent of whom are minors, according to the official China
Internet Information Center.
A recent survey found that 46 percent of the 3,000 students from
middle schools, colleges and universities sampled were quite
experienced in accessing to online pornographic materials.
Nevertheless, there is not yet any specific article in the
Criminal Law to deal with online pornography, said the NPC
deputy.
(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2004)
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