The Ministry of Public Security (MPS), along with nine other government departments, announced the launch of a campaign Thursday to restrict the spread of pornography on the Internet in China.

"The boom of pornographic content on the Internet has contaminated cyberspace and perverted China's young minds," said Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of MPS.

In the next six months, Zhang said, the ministries will crack down on illegal online activities such as distributing pornographic materials and organizing cyber strip shows, and purge the web of sexually-explicit images, stories, and audio and video clips.

The campaign will also target illegal online lotteries and contraband trade, fraud, and "content that spreads rumors and is of a slanderous nature," said Zhang.

In Nov. 2006, Chinese police cracked the largest pornographic website in the country and arrested the creator Chen Hui, who was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

The website Chen started contained more than nine million pornographic images and articles and it had attracted more than 600,000 registered users.

"The inflow of pornographic materials from abroad and lax domestic control are to blame for the existing problems in China's cyberspace," Zhang said.

China has roughly 123 million Internet users, most of whom are young people.

A report by the Beijing Reformatory for Juvenile Delinquents said 33.5 percent of its detainees were influenced by violent online games or erotic websites when they committed crimes such as robbery and rape.

(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2007)