China shuts down two blogsites

Chinese officials have closed two Internet sites used by tens of thousands of people to post online diaries known as blogs because they carried content deemed objectionable.

Some Chinese Internet users said the sites were shut because one or more personal pages carried opinions on a well-known doctors letter to Chinas senior leadership asking them to reassess the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. The Blogbus site, where more than 15,000 Chinese surfers post opinions and write about their daily lives, has been shut since March 11.

Because content posted by certain individuals is against regulations, this sites server will be temporarily closed, said a notice on blogbus.com. Another site Blogcn, which some have said was the biggest blog host in China, was shut down on March 14.

How tragic! Politics is so scary, said a Net user in response. Dr Jiang Yanyong, who blew the whistle on Chinas SARS cover-up last year, asked the Communist Party to reverse the verdict that the student-led movement was a counter-revolutionary rebellion. Reuters