Censorship Task Force Meets to Discuss 2006 Spring Campaign

The National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force (Task Force), which coordinates government efforts to combat illegal publishing in China, convened a meeting on April 27 in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, according to an April 29 Xinhua report (in Chinese). Over 200 representatives from the Central Propaganda Department, General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Information Industry, General Administration of Customs, Ministry of Culture, State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Ministry of Communications, Civil Aviation Administration, and Ministry of Railways attended the meeting.

Officials announced at the meeting that during its "spring campaign," the Task Force had confiscated over 37.5 million publications, banned 176 newspapers and periodicals, and investigated and prosecuted 2,000 Web sites, according to an April 27 Xinhua report (in Chinese). In the process, the Task Force organized 73,282 investigations involving 509,038 law enforcement and investigative personnel, who inspected 90,910 publication markets, 260,402 publication shops and stalls, and 55,740 printing and copying shops. These activities resulted in sanctions for 9,663 publication shops and stalls and 1,281 printing presses, and the closures of 16 copying enterprises, 8,776 publication shops and stalls, and 272 printing presses. The number of confiscated publications included approximately 37 million copies of obscene and pirated books and software, illegal education materials, and smuggled optical discs. The report did not specify what types of publications constituted the remaining 500,000 items, but in March the People's Daily reported that in 2005 Chinese authorities seized almost 1 million publications because of their political content.

According to an April 29 Xinhua report (in Chinese), Long Xinmin, director of the GAPP, called on attendees of the meeting to closely observe the "three bottom lines": stopping obscene publications; protecting intellectual property rights; and preventing publications from appearing in China that have "severe political problems that give rise to wide debate in society and that threaten social stability and political stability." Long said that grasping these three bottom lines forms part of the Communist Party's propaganda work, and is the Task Force's political duty. According to an April 28 Xinhua report (in Chinese), Long said it is necessary to intercept, confiscate, and strike hard at illegal political publications at their points of transportation, publication, and sales.

According to a May 1 Xinhua report (in Chinese), following the conference, Liu Binjie, deputy director of the GAPP, announced that the Task Force's "summer campaign" would focus on four areas:

1. Protecting intellectual property;
2. Eliminating publications that are obscene, promote terrorism and violence, and other kinds of "harmful cultural information;"
3. Striking hard at illegal and pirated teaching and educational materials; and
4. Shutting down and confiscating illegal political publications.