China's Internet watchdogs are not taking time off during the week-long Spring Festival holiday and continued to scrutinize websites containing pornograhpy and "lewd" contents.

Another 55 porn Web sites have been closed since Sunday, or eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year, bringing the total number of blocked sites to 1,507 since the anti-porn campaign was launched on Jan. 5.

The 55 Web sites, which contained and publicized pornographic and vulgar contents, violated China's regulations and laws against public distribution of sexual images, said a statement issued by the Special Operation Office for Crackdown on Online Porn and Lewd Content.

The office also closed 114 blogs, which contained pornographic contents and deleted more than 47,000 pornographic pictures during the Spring Festival.

The campaign, launched by seven government departments including the State Council's Information Office, Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Culture, has already been extended to mobile phone games, online novels, videos and radio programs.

The office said in the statement that "efforts against vulgar online content will not weaken in the future and violators will face heavy punishment according to law."

For the sake of children

Dismissing speculation that China is improving control over internet, an official with the network office of the State Council's Information Office said earlier that "the campaign has a single and clear goal, that is to clean up the Internet and save the Internet environment for children."

"Rampant pornography and lewd content on the Internet do great damage to juveniles, and we are acting in response to the public complaints," Liu Zhengrong, deputy director of the network office, told Xinhua.

He said he felt ashamed when being asked by a friend a few days ago if it was safe to let his 12-year-old son surf the Internet during the Spring Festival holiday.

"I told him we won't stop working during the holiday to reassure all anxious parents," he said.

Of the country's 298 million Internet users, about 108 million are under 19, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

An estimated 80 million Internet users are primary and high school students, who use computers for research and learning materials.

Public distribution of pornography is illegal in China, and the government's crackdown ahead of the traditional Spring Festival holiday, which begins Monday, is aimed at shielding young people from online porn.

"Lewd" content includes violence, libel, private and other information that violates standards of public decency.

So far, 41 people have been detained for disseminating porn on the Internet during the campaign.

This year's Spring Festival, or Lunar New Year, fell on Jan. 26. The Spring Festival holiday started from Jan. 25 to Jan. 31.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2009)