China Crackdown Targets Porn

A woman who ran a Web site that showed women stripping has been sentenced to four years in prison in China's first cyberporn criminal case, state media reported Monday.

Wang Yanli was sentenced Friday by the Feng County People's Court in the eastern province of Jiangsu on charges of organizing the showing of pornography, the newspaper Beijing News reported.

She was accused of opening chat rooms and charging annual fees of up to 600 yuan ($72) to watch online videos of women taking their clothes off, the report said.

Every day, more than 90 people would enter the chat rooms to watch, it said.

China has launched a crackdown on Web sites deemed pornographic and is encouraging the public to call in with tips.

Authorities have arrested more than 300 people since mid-July and shut down 700 China-based Web sites, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

China encourages Internet use for business and education and has 87 million people online. But Beijing's leaders worry that it also could spread criticism of communist rule and give the public access to material deemed obscene or subversive.

Amnesty International reports that as of January 2004 at least 54 people had been detained in China for discussing political beliefs on the Internet.