China blocks dead autocrat's comments

THE COMMUNIST mandarins of the Chinese government seem to have decided that they really don't think it is good for their people to be worried about the death of Polish Pope John Paul II.

While the rest of the web is blocked with eulogies for the dead pontiff, the Chinese censors have decided that the country doesn't want that sort of nonsense clogging its Internet bandwidth.

So along with dissidents, porn and occasionally Google, the Chinese have banned all prayers, blessings and other comment on the death of Pope John Paul II from being posted on the interweb.

The difference was noticeable. Popular portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com's were packed full of Papal comments, but on Monday there wasn't so much as a rosary bead.

Sohu.com used technology which means that only the person who posted the remarks can see them. A spokesman said that religious issues were "special" and the company was afraid of problems arising. However Sohu insists that they didn't get a dictate from central government and it was simply its own initiative -- one which seems to have been coincidently copied by all its competition including Sina.com and Netease.com.

The Beijing police department's internet management office seems to agree with the ISPs and said that they had no knowledge of the censorship. State newspapers on Monday carried only brief reports about the 84-year-old pontiff's death.

French hacks seem to think that the Chinese authorities are a little worried that their own people might be a little nasty about the Pope on message boards. When he was alive he recognised Taiwan, which China sees as renegade province.

However it is refreshing to know that they did not extend the censorship blackout when it came to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to China last month. Then the Chinese were allowed to have an uncensored onslaught of racist, sexist, and highly offensive remarks about her. So there is hope yet.

Well, so it seems to say, here. µ