China is launching a new nationwide campaign to crack down on porn websites.

A senior official on Friday called for efforts that follow President Hu Jintao's instructions to wage a people's war against pornography on the Internet.

Zhou Yongkang, member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee spoke at a national teleconference on the crackdown, the People's Daily reported on Saturday.

Zhou pledged to firmly crack down on a number of major criminal cases, severely punish operators and individuals that have violated the law, destroy porn sites, and to crack down on a number of online criminal activities that commit fraud and promote gambling.

Nearly 500 websites across China were reported to have published pornographic content a senior official said yesterday.

Cai Mingzhao, deputy director of the Information Office of the State Council, said an official online reporting centre has received 22,000 reports filed by the general public since the centre was set up earlier this month.

About 95 per cent of the reports are on websites having pornographic content, and officials confirmed that nearly 500 of the websites published pornographic pictures, film clips and recorded video messages, said Cai.

Cai demanded news and commercial websites to erase their pornographic contents by the end of September, or face cancellation of their licenses to publish news stories.

Xinhua

(China Daily 07/19/2004 page2)