Chinese police have apprehended 10 suspects for allegedly
producing, selling and purchasing discs of Hong Kong's nude
celebrity photos in the southern city of Shenzhen.
Police confiscated about 250 such discs involving entertainer
Edison Chen and some female starlets, in addition to six computers
used to produce the discs, in the city neighboring Hong Kong a week
ago, the Southern Metropolitan News reported
Wednesday.
Three suspects were given five-day administrative detention, and
two others, a 19-year-old man surnamed Jiang and a 27-year-old man
surnamed Ma, were under criminal detention and still being
questioned by police, the paper said, citing the Shenzhen Municipal
Public Security Bureau.
"The police authorities will severely crack down on the criminal
activities of manufacturing, selling and spreading discs of Hong
Kong's celebrity photos and other porn productions," a police
spokesman was quoted as saying.
Last month, photos of the Canadian-born Chen caught in sexual
acts with various Hong Kong starlets surfaced on the Internet and
have spread like wildfire ever since.
Thirteen on-line portals on the Chinese mainland have issued a
joint statement asking domestic websites to boycott such nude
photos.
It urged netizens and website staff to be self-disciplined and
prevent the posting and dissemination of such images by pledging
not to download, spread or speculate on the photos.
So far, more than 40 domestic websites have supported the
statement and many Chinese netizens have pledged not download or
spread the Chen photos.
In addition, Chinese Internet search engine Baidu.com has been
asked by Beijing's Internet self-discipline organization to make a
public apology for spreading the photos.
The Beijing Internet news information review council, initiated
by the government-sponsored Beijing Association of Online Media,
issued a statement on Monday, criticizing the Nasdaq-listed
website's conduct in relation to the photos.
The statement meanwhile praised other big Chinese mainland
websites, including Sohu.com, Sina.com and Netease, as they called
for Internet users "not to download, save and spread the photos"
and "to prevent the photos from falling into the hands of
children."
(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2008)