BEIJING, January 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A nationwide crackdown on pornography by the Chinese government has resulted in the National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications shutting down more than 60,000 porn websites in 2010, according to a Xinhua News report.
The agency praised the role informants had played in uncovering the online or cellphone-based spread of porn content, which led to the investigation of 2197 cases of disseminating pornography through the Internet and mobile devices. 534 people were rewarded with a total of 544,000 yuan ($81,964) for providing information.
The government porn watchdog reported that nearly a million copies of porn publications had been seized as a result of 1,669 investigations. Another 37 million pirated items, including DVDs and books, were also confiscated.
Wang Chen, head of the State Council Information Office, announced in a year-end statement that the campaign against porn was vital to the nation’s well-being, especially the emotional health of its children, and would be continued.
According to Reuters, Wang stated, “Our campaign has been a great success and this has not been achieved easily. We have made the Internet environment much cleaner than before as there was a lot of pornography available.”
“But our campaign has not come to a stop. This will be a long battle,” Wang said.
“As long as there are people with bad motives who want to spread violent or pornographic information, we will have to continue our campaign to resolutely crack down on the spread of such information.”
Wang remarked that of a total of 4,965 suspects investigated on porn related charges, 1,332 people received “criminal punishment,” with 58 jailed for five years or more.