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Days after the legislature approved an amendment to its constitution saying, for the first time, that the state respects and protects human rights, the Chinese government has shut down two popular sites hosting blogs used by many thousands of China’s 80 million Internet users.
One site, BlogBus.com, hosts more than 15,000 blogs which have been made inaccessible. The site was shut down March 11 after allowing a letter critical of the government to be posted.
The other site, Blogcn.com, was shut down on March 14. BlogBus is still shut down, but Blogcn seems to be up and running normally.
The government had previously shut down websites and discussion forums, leaving blogs as one of the only avenues for expression of ideas. Sites of foreign media are regularly blocked. For example, during China’s recent annual parliament session, the Chinese versions of major international sites Deutsche Welle and the Wall Street Journal were blocked.
Last year, China’s Web police blocked access to the U.S.-based “Blogspot” Web site, which then had more than one million users, according to Reuters.
Keep John Ashcroft and the Bush administration in office if you want to see this happen here.