Gay websites closed due to pressure

More than 10 gay websites in China have been recently forced to close or had their accounts deleted by their server hosting companies, an NGO said yesterday.

"Some of the hosting service providers even told us that gay chatting was illegal," said Geng Le, the webmaster of a gay website in Beijing.

The Chinese Association of HIV/AIDS NGOs, which was founded by 165 NGOs in China, made the statement on Wednesday. It also said they would provide free legal aid to those webmasters.