China Starts to Lift Region’s Web Blackout

Chinese authorities charged that Uighur separatist networks mobilized rioters via phones and popular social networking sites, and have defended the blackouts on security grounds.

But in Xinjiang, residents widely assert that the government squeeze on information stoked further tensions and unrest, such as during a spate of syringe stabbings in Urumqi in August. Deadly protests ensued in early September, and the city’s mayor and the regional police chief were promptly dismissed.

In Xinjiang, local authorities, banks and phone service providers have been able to send text messages, but private citizens still cannot. People can read news on a number of local government-run media sites that were restored in August, yet most of those sites are blocked to viewers outside the region.

State firms and some large companies have been able to apply to hook up to the Web outside Xinjiang, but smaller businesses generally cannot. Even at popular online trading posts that have been switched back on, Web users in Xinjiang can deal only with others in Xinjiang. Some have driven hundreds of miles away to Gansu Province to conduct business.

In September, Xinjiang passed a broadly worded bill banning online speech that incites separatism and upsets national unity and social stability, and ordered service providers to monitor their systems for such provocations. The authorities have enlisted local Communist Youth League members to act as online “supervisors.”

But even on local news portals that have been operating for months, Web forums, blog and e-mail services remain off limits.

On Tuesday, the same constraints seemed to apply to the two newly accessible sites, Xinhuanet.com and People.com.cn, people in Xinjiang said.

The government statement quoted a regional official saying e-mail services would eventually be restored on major sites under certain “conditions,” but did not specify them. The statement asked people for their further understanding and support.