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Censorship Your Rights Online

Complete Net Cafe Shutdown After Beijing Fire 284

lunchlady doris writes: "The BBC has this story that tells of a fire in an internet cafe in Beijing that killed 24 people. The mayor responded to this tragedy by shutting down all 2,400 cafes in the city, most of which are operated illegally. Only 200 cafes will be allowed to reopen, pending municipal regulation. Needless to say, the netizens of Beijing are pissed and see this as a move to quash the limited access to the net that the Chinese people currently have."
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Complete Net Cafe Shutdown After Beijing Fire

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  • by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @03:55AM (#3720761) Homepage Journal
    Recently China's been acting quite belligerently towards N. Korean refugees trying to escape into the embassies of free nations. The first one was the Japanese embassy on May 10. The latest one was a few days ago at the S. Korean embassy. They have been entering embassy grounds and forcibly removing refugees from sovereign territory.

    This closing of Internet cafes is indicative of something, perhaps a new crackdown on freedoms as the Chinese populace is exposed to more and more visions of freedom seekers being beat down at the gates of the S. Korean embassy or a mother and grandmother beaten up at the Japanese embassy.
    • As inhabitent of India I can say that noting is here new. China always very controlling the net and freedom of the speech.

      Noting new, noting to wory about extra. I hoped the internet would change thing a bit, but thats dream so.

      Radjif
      • China always very controlling the net and freedom of the speech.

        To be honest your statement is true. However, if you care to read any news on it, you can see that the reason to shutdown netcafes is for safety and license inspection, it has nothing to do with squeezing free of speech and human right. While it may be true that China Government has problems with human right, do you guys has to related all the bad things happened in China to human right and free speech?

        Recent floods in China has killed thousands of people, can we conclude by this instance that human right and freedom of speech are in jeopardy?
        • the reason to shutdown netcafes is for safety and license inspection, it has nothing to do with squeezing free of speech and human right
          In the United States, there are those who want to see journalists licensed. The theory is that if the only people who can [report|comment on] the news are certified as properly trained, there will be fewer instances of libel.

          The reason this has not happened is because the license would become a tool to restrict freedom of speech. Criticize the president and you lose your license. Report on Camp X-Ray detainees' claims that they are being mistreated and you lose your license. Etc.

          China makes no secret of the fact that it doesn't want its citizens to have access to publications not controlled by the government (it blocks access to major Western newspapers including the NY Times and Washington Post). I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the Chinese government has been waiting for something like this to happen to give it an excuse to close the cafes. I would go so far as to keep my mind open to the possibility that the Chinese government set the fire to create this convenient excuse.

          How does mandatory licensing ensure protection against a fire in a cafe? Why does this new licensing apply only to Internet cafes and not barber shops? Both use electronic equipment that could start a fire, but only one has the potential to introduce uncensored information to the masses in a shielded society. I think what the Chinese government is really worried about is the fact that ideas spread like forest fires.

        • However, if you care to read any news on it, you can see that the reason to shutdown netcafes is for safety and license inspection, it has nothing to do with squeezing free of speech and human right. While it may be true that China Government has problems with human right, do you guys has to related all the bad things happened in China to human right and free speech?

          Personally, I am of the opinion that the Chinese government set that very convenient fire itself, just to provide an excuse to seize control of the net cafes. Therefore I would say it relates to the free speech issue after all. Even worse, I am fairly certain our precious US government would do the same type of manipulation to justify their actions...

        • the reason to shutdown netcafes is for safety and license inspection,

          If you actually believe that, then you truly are gullable. A fire in a building kills a lot of people because the doors are locked. The government uses the fact that the building happens to be housing an internet cafe as an excuse to shut down other internet cafes. Now, there's two ways to look at it: (1) - The fact that the building housed an internet cafe has nothing to do with the fire hazards and so the government is using a random coincidence as an excuse to go after internet cafes, or, worse yet, you could look at it this way, (2) - The fact that the internet cafe has to hide from the government because of the government's restrictions on internet use is what caused the fire hazards such as locked exits. So either the government is shutting down internet cafes giving a fake reason that has nothing to do with reality, or they are doing it because of a situation they themselves caused. Either way they are in the wrong.

        • However, if you care to read any news on it, you can see that the reason to shutdown netcafes is for safety and license inspection, it has nothing to do with squeezing free of speech and human right

          So 2 days later, there is news of 93 killed in a Chinese mining disaster. Mining accidents in China have been quite prevalent. Why doesn't the government care as much about the miners?

          http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacifi c/newsid_2056000/2056968.stm [bbc.co.uk]
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:26AM (#3720819)
      Weird indeed. I'm actually on holiday in china so i got a chance to see the news on cctv4. apart from the fire hazard they also talked about the dangers of letting young people on the internet.And in the same item they talked about limiting youth access to karaoke bars.

      What's really weird is that my internet explorer refuses to open the beijing internet cafe story on yro.slashdot.org. strange because everything else on yro (including the is china losing control story) still works. being an old slashdot reader I ssh-ed to my unix box and used lynx instead. i've no idea how they would block a single url that way, but hey, i'm a westerner in china, so i'm a little paranoid...

      XENNA

      (sorry 'bout the layout, btw: same story on the pc next to me)
    • Even the press has conclude that the embassy instances are all political. It could be an accident in the first instance, but it's obviously not for the second.

      However, I see no direct relation of above with the shutting down of netcafes. Your rationale is that you don't like the way China Government treats people in both cases so they are connected.

      I know take an objective view on cases related to commies would be unwelcomed here. I don't care, I just state the fact.
  • by jukal ( 523582 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @03:55AM (#3720762) Journal
    If the netcafe is already illegal, does saying "please, shutdown() your netcafe, it's illegal" change anything :)
    • They're shutting down all netcafe's pending fire regulation testing. Of course, they now have the opportunity to delay this testing and potentially keep them closed.

      It only takes a little cynicism to take the view that this is an opportunity for China to shut down something they don't like. To be honest, does one fire in one cybercafe really justify the closure of all such establishments?

      • To be honest, does one fire in one cybercafe really justify the closure of all such establishments?

        No of course not! It justifies the closure of the entire internet for safety reasons however! please unplug your computer now :)

        --see thats a joke people.. humor.. itz a good thing..

    • I note that the article doesn't say how the cybercafe is "operated illegally", and given the track record of the Chinese government for suppression of the Internet lots of people are assuming they are some speakeasy type dive. It could just be that they sell coffee and danish that are past their sell by date you know, or more likely given the deaths, infringe on lots of safety regulations.

      Just playing devil's advocate...

  • by m.batsis ( 529986 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @03:58AM (#3720770)
    ... the Chinese gov would admit it's responsibilities regarding the incident did you? If the internet cafe was allowed to be legal, no emergency exits would be locked. Sorry, no sig.
    • Not necessarily.

      (Fire) security is usually the first place where people cut costs in public buildings.
      Fire extinguishers cost money, and the emergency exit uses valuable floor space that could so much better be used for putting another internet station in.

      That's why people need to have a license to operate such cafe's, and if it's only so that the fire department gets to police the security measures put in place to protect the customers.
      • If the internet cafe was allowed to be legal, no emergency exits would be locked
      Nonesense. As with most other buildings in areas like that, doors were locked and windows were barred because of the threat of crime. They're protecting their hardware. If the police want to enter, they'd beat the door down. They're banking that theives won't do the same.
  • by Saint Fnordius ( 456567 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:05AM (#3720782) Homepage Journal
    It's easy to jump on the mayor for being a censor tyrant for this action, and some conspiracy buffs will undoubtedly claim the fire was set by the authorities on purpose. I think the real cause is the cavalier lack of any safety measures. Most of these cafés were illegal most likely because they didn't conform to any sort of building codes or grease the right palms.

    After the excitement dies back down, several of these cafés will be up and running again, most likely under new aliases and at new locations.

    I doubt that this will have more than a temporary effect. Even on fire safety.
    • It's easy to jump on the mayor for being a censor tyrant for this action

      Actually, it is. Consider that China is presently in the patient process of choosing new leaders and a new "president" (Hu Jintao), if that new leadership would look favorably on the mayor of Beijing for a little rounding up of civil liberties than this makes an effective example of his willingness. The present government has made no secret of encouraging the masses to embrace technology, buy on the government's terms. Very convenient.

      Now might be a good time to update an old marxism: The internet is the opiate of the masses.

    • No kidding. Last time I was there (98), I saw a guy working under a car with his body sticking out into the road, cars flying past.

      No construction areas were blocked off -- pedestrians would just pick their way through cranes, pits, and piles of broken stone and concrete to get to the other side...

      A cab we were in crashed into a bicycler in the street, and the policeman picked him up, dusted him off, and sent him on his way bleeding on his rickety bike.

      On the way to ChangBaiShan we saw a number of overturned trucks along the side of the road, and finally flew off the road ourselves and flipped and crashed. This was after over an hour of imploring our insane driver to slow down.

      When it comes to safety, the Chinese are still totally systematically insane.
    • If they're closing down these places because of safety concerns, how come they don't shut down police stations too? Chinese police stations for some reason have these incerdibly dangerous upper story windows that witnesses and prisoners are constantly falling out of to their deaths. So tragic really...
  • Ridiculous. (Score:2, Informative)

    by lang2 ( 539120 )
    I really don't see why 'the netizen would be upset'. A lot of the resident in big city, espeically like Beijing, have interenet access at home, even broad ban if you are lucky enough to stay in a modern building. The so-called internet cafe are really for teenagers to enjoy networked gameing (LAN), and sometimes to view pornographic content on the web, which is illegal anyway. It is ridiculous to judge that this is a way the goverment use to stop the 'netizen' to access the internet.
    • > and sometimes to view pornographic content > on the web, which is illegal anyway That's the problem. Pornography is illegal because your government is evil.
    • I really don't see why 'the netizen would be upset'. A lot of the resident in big city, espeically like Beijing, have interenet access at home, even broad ban if you are lucky enough to stay in a modern building. The so-called internet cafe are really for teenagers to enjoy networked gameing (LAN), and sometimes to view pornographic content on the web, which is illegal anyway. It is ridiculous to judge that this is a way the goverment use to stop the 'netizen' to access the internet.

      Another thing that people use internet cafes for is to disagree with the government, or to read information that disagrees with the government's official position, without the act being tracked to them.

      Once that's no longer an issue, I'll accept that home internet access is as useful to society as netcafes.

      Until then, you're just an apologist for those who are so pathetically insecure about the righteousness of their weak moral and intellectual positions that they have to use force to keep people from seeing alternative viewpoints.

  • by Mudcathi ( 584851 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:09AM (#3720792) Journal
    The BSA doesn't mess around in those developing countries, does it?! Betcha the 200 shops that re-open will have their documents in order...
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Come on you know you want your citizens downloading streams of Eminem in tights. Just admit it!
  • if only you knew.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:12AM (#3720796)
    the real condition of these illegal net cafes.....

    Think a large room with only one door(maybe two... second one likely locked) and 100-200 conmputers with a few hundred people. When they do things here they tend to do it big.

    Windows are often barred as well so if there is a fire near an exit.... you can imagine the results.

    This is why they are shutting down the cafes.... they are death traps.

    As for controlling Internet access.... they want to limit the hours and the ages of the people who can access it - stop school children wasting their time there and it also means you have to be an adult to use it outside of school holidays.
    • Your message is informative, however, I want to know WHY these things are happening... WHY are the windows barred up? I know that there is little crime in that area, so they must be there for a different reason..
      • by Anonymous Coward
        It's to protect the windows from flying bodies hurled during the frequent kung-fu fights that happen on the streets of Beijing.
    • Windows are often barred

      Should be popular on Slashdot ;-)!
    • So, in other words (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )
      It's killing many birds with one stone. Some reasonable, some not necessarily so. 200 to service the needs formerly filled by 2,400 is extreme. Other measures could have been taken, but this seems usually draconian. Rather than address the conditions before the fire, they use it as the club to subdue the people, yet again.
  • Cool.

    After I started filtering out on Korean netblocks 95% of the SPAM I get is chinese. So this got to be good.

    I would buy the mayor a few of what he drinks.

    To the moderator: don't mod it down as flamebait. Ask someone who has ever tried to find an abuse@ for a netblock in that part of the world first.

  • Clear things up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jsse ( 254124 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:17AM (#3720807) Homepage Journal
    I write to clear things up just in case some people immediate jumping into issues of free speech and human rights.

    The students are killed as all possible exits were either blocked or locked up.

    The building has only one entrance/exit, and it was locked at the time of fire, and the windows were barred with steel. As a matter of fact the owner didn't get proper license to open an Internet cafe and the door was always locked to avoid inspection. The windows were barred to prevent thievery, and it's not unusual to see many factories and commercial buildings have their windows barred for this reason.

    As a result the authority shutdown all Internet cafes for safety and license inspection. In fact only 1/10 of the Internet cafes got proper commercial license for. It's not an action against civilians' Internet access, at least not directly.

    Of course, I'd expect people in Beijing has tough time accessing Internet in the future, as the conservative people would sneak chance to impose more restrictions. :(
    • ^To balance this, please post which licenses are involved when opening an internet cafe in China and how much you normally have to pay for them in "Fragrent Grease".
    • Agent Provocateurs (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 )
      The students are killed as all possible exits were either blocked or locked up.

      The building has only one entrance/exit, and it was locked at the time of fire, and the windows were barred with steel. As a matter of fact the owner didn't get proper license to open an Internet cafe and the door was always locked to avoid inspection.


      Two points you should consider in all this (please note that this isn't intended as a slight against China ... these sorts of things are documented to have happened historically in the United States as well)

      1) Making a service illegal often leads to safety issues like this. Speakeasies during prohibition in the United States, unsanitary abortion clinics in the United States prior to Roe v. Wade, etc. The answere isn't to shut down all internet cafes, as if the demand is strong enough they will reopen regardless, perhaps even more secretively, and likely be just as unsafe as before.

      2) Have you considered the possiblity that the fire was deliberately set by agent provocatuers, in order to manufacture an excuse for a widespread crackdown? What better way to turn a very unpopular move into an acceptable one "we have your safety at heart, that's why we must take away your access to information that we don't want you to see"? Again, this sort of thing (though generally without the loss of life) has happened in western society more than once.

      Of course, I'd expect people in Beijing has tough time accessing Internet in the future, as the conservative people would sneak chance to impose more restrictions.

      Creating conditions where such an action becomes popular is a time-honored method by doing exactly this: sneaking it "through the front door" so to speak, in plain view, because the frightened masses have suddenly started demanding exactly what before they would have fought tooth and nail to avoid. Whether it is exploiting happy circumstance, or manufacturing such circumstance, nearly every government engages in this despicable behavior, including my own right now in response to 9/11 (USA).
    • Re:Clear things up (Score:4, Interesting)

      by micromoog ( 206608 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @08:38AM (#3721464)
      The Chinese government has jumped on this opportunity to impose greater restrictions on Internet access, and you've bought the propaganda.

      Since 90% of Beijing's Internet cafes have been operating illegally anyway, there is nothing to be gained by ordering all of them to shut down. The government is just using this incident to say "Look, the evil Internet is killing our children".

      The government also took the opportunity to encourage citizens to turn in any Internet cafes they are aware of, in the name of public safety. These tactics are reminiscent of the "turn in your brother in the name of the people" tactics used by most authoritarian states over the years.

      This is nothing but a thinly-veiled move to further restrict the Internet in China. It's a terrible shame that those students died, but they died because of a government that forces them to do their free speaking behind locked doors. Rest assured that the cafes, both legitimate and otherwise, will have a much harder time starting back up once the government completes their (lengthy) "fire inspections".

  • Excuses (Score:3, Troll)

    by juliao ( 219156 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:23AM (#3720816) Homepage
    The Chinese government has always had a problem with internet cafes. Especially because they are anonymous, surfing from a cafe is quite different from surfing from your own home. If you surf from home, you can be held liable for what you download and what you access. At a cafe, you can never be sure about who does what. And that, of course, drives any control-freak internal intelligence agency quite mad.

    Of course they could have shut down most of the cafes before, since they were illegal, but that would expose them to international pressure and make them look like tyrants deemed to deny freedom and anonymity.

    Now, they have the perfect excuse. Under the banner of "think of the fires", they can close down most of the cafes and start imposing strict regulations and control on the remaining ones. If any of the remaining ones fails to comply, they can always audit them for fire regulations compliance, and subsequently shut them down.

    And what will the international community say? Nothing. What can you say?

    Any kind of totalitary regime comes with its own risks. Abuse of power comes to mind as a prominent one. The Chinese government will always leverage their existing power in order to maitain and obtain more power. Frankly, I don't know how a one-billion-people country can be ruled. I don't even know if a democratic regime as we know it would ever work there. But I'm sure that it can't be much worse than it already is.

    • Governing India (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jbf ( 30261 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @05:33AM (#3720937)
      Frankly, I don't know how a one-billion-people country can be ruled. I don't even know if a democratic regime as we know it would ever work there. But I'm sure that it can't be much worse than it already is.

      Of course it can be... Look at India. Sure, the government collapses once in a while, but I think India's a lot harder to run: $2.2k GNP per cap, vs China's $3.6k GNP, massive ethnic strife in India and interests from so many different states, etc.

      My point is that India is a pretty radical experiment in democracy... just consider the expense of running elections in a place that has a $2200 per capita GNP.
      • ... just consider the expense of running elections in a place that has a $2200 per capita GNP.

        Please consider, though, that you only need to pay election workers based on that GNP. And that that GNP is based on an entirely different economy of scale than the US economy. And that most Indians are not picketing in West Palm beach for new electronic balloting boxes and banning butterfly ballots.

        For instance: A starter home in San Mateo, California costs $399,995. A starter home in Cleveland, Ohio (comparably equipped), costs you $79,995. So while it may cost americans $10 for a reasonable dinner out, the pedestrian restaurants of India may only charge $2 for a comparable meal.

        A very simplistic example, but an important distinction. You're directly comparing currencies, but not costs based on the differences in economies.
        • I have a hard time imagining that raw materials are much cheaper. It costs the same amount of money for the gas to move the ballots, etc.

          Restaurants in India are unimaginably cheaper than you suggest. But the point is that when so many people are under the poverty line, voting seems like a grand waste of money, because *any* marginal cost could also be used to feed the populace.
          • ....when so many people are under the poverty line, voting seems like a grand waste of money...

            Thank you, Emporer Palpatine.

            Or, for the non Sci-Fi, politiTrolls out there:

            Thank you, Grand Emporer Ashcroft.

            Voting is never a waste of money. Costs of manning an election are easily justified by the benfits of a democracy; and in India's case, I think we can easily say the government has been spending a LOT of money where it should not be... *cough* NUCLEAR WEAPONS *cough*
            • Key word is *seems*, and perhaps more correctly "may seem." As you'll recall from the parent post you replied to, I'm quite supportive of democracy in India, and use it as proof that even a country China's size can be governed, and even democratically.

              So thank you for your misreading.
  • by forged ( 206127 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:25AM (#3720817) Homepage Journal
    What makes the story fascinating to the Slashdot readers (and to the editors who posted it in the first place) is that it is a cybercafë which burned down. So what.

    If that would have been any other kind of building in town, nobody else would care.

    The reality is that, "Investigators blamed the high death toll on locked emergency exits. " This is all there is to the story.

    Shit happens [bbc.co.uk].

    • > The reality is that, "Investigators blamed the
      > high death toll on locked emergency exits. " This > is all there is to the story.

      That's not all there is. The point of the story being on /. is that the Bejing mayor is using the fact that the building was an Internet cafe as an excuse to crack down on *all* Internet cafes. This is obviously something they would like to do, and the argument looks at first like:

      1. Cafe crowded and not following safety procedures because of lack of regulation

      2. Cafe burns down, terrible loss of life.

      3. Regulate Internet cafes so they follow safety prcedures.

      Which in theory is great. The worry is that if the city starts regulating the cafes, due to past behaviour it's quite likely the authorities will also try to use the move to curtail Internet use and content.

      • so what? most of them were already illegal. nothing will stop them from re-opening again i guess.
      • Actually, I believe there are regulations. Chinese just want Internet Cafés so bad that they just can't and won't go by the rules.

        IMHO the mayor's attempt at controlling the situation (Internet cafés spreading like wildfire--no play on words intended) seems more like something he said to save face in the light of the tragedy (24 dead). Still, I would be surprised if this atually changed anything now that the Chinese have become Internet addicts.

    • The reality is that, "Investigators blamed the high death toll on locked emergency exits. " This is all there is to the story.

      Don't just read the article -- read between the lines, to what's really going on here. The cafes are often dimly lit, hidden from view and with heavy doors to deter the authorities - but which can turn them into a death trap in case of fire. [bbc.co.uk]

      Would those doors have been locked in an American or other western country's cyber cafes? The subject at hand is freedom of information and civil rights, two subjects which I hope are very important to the average slashdot reader.

  • by gqy ( 586227 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:27AM (#3720824) Journal
    In China you can pay 80 Yuan ($10) monthly fee to have a dial-up account, which is affordable for most Chinese. A majority of the netizen in China can surf on Internet right from their home.

    People who go the Cafes are mostly teenagers. Closing the net cafes does not affect anything at all for most Internet surfers.

    I can remember, several years ago, there was a huge fire in a dance club, which killed hundreds of people. The city closed all its dance clubs for one month and only allow those which has the right license and meets fire standards to reopen. I think it is the same thing here for Net Cafes. It has nothing to do with quashing the Internet access. It can't.

    Notes: I just checked with friends in China. They can acess slashdot.com and cnn.com without any limitation.

    • In China you can pay 80 Yuan ($10) monthly fee to have a dial-up account, which is affordable for most Chinese.

      It depends on where in China, but I expect you're correct for Beijing.

      A majority of the netizen in China can surf on Internet right from their home.

      The bigger issue here is who can afford to have their own computer at home. Most students, certainly, can not. That's why Internet cafes such as this one (in the University district) are so popular.

      I agree with the gist of your message, though. This isn't about trying to prevent Internet access.

    • They might be able to afford dialup...

      but most can't afford a COMPUTER!

      Read the damn CNN link, for god's sake,
    • Most Beijingers cannot afford a computer. The upper class can, but the large middle and lower class cannot. So they can't have internet access at home even though the monthy fee for it is quite reasonable.

      Do your friends live in foreigner housing? Housing which is set aside for for westerners typically has alot more free access to internet and TV than domestic housing. In western hotels you can get CNN and unfiltered Internet, but not in private residences or public Chinese housing.

      When I was there getting Slashdot was no problem at all, but CNN was always blocked.
  • For the safety of those around you, the Internet should only be used outdoors. Just outside every building you can see groups of people clustered together, off to the side so they don't block traffic through the doors. Even in winter you'll see them outside for several minutes at a time.
  • by fruey ( 563914 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:35AM (#3720843) Homepage Journal
    Only a few weeks ago, a senior figure in China's Communist government expressed concern about the amount of time young people are spending surfing the internet and called for tighter regulation of cyber cafes.

    It would appear the consensus so far is that Internet is a good thing and therefore all access should be free and open. I would tend to agree, although what is clear is this: any government saying something is illegal, or immoral, or expressing concern about the effect it might have on young people, tends to stigmatise it, but also to make it more attractive. Internet will not be seen as a learning tool if the government suggest that young people should not be spending a lot of time with it. Just like parents years ago bemoaned computer games and too much time in front of those things, but at least then (before the Sega Megadrive and Nintendo Entertainment System, at least) most home machines had a keyboard and taught people like me the basic skills to then get into REAL computing.

    Internet should not be discouraged. It is a basic skill that the younger generation will need to progress in the increasingly digital economy. I don't mean computer programming, I mean basic business management and productivity increases by leveraging the power of IT. China (or any other régime for that matter) is making a mistake by making Internet taboo. Late night surfing, on these kid's own free time, should be encouraged. Making porn or whatever illegal usually does not help. I always remember that during prohibition in the US, alcohol consumption rose, and I think now of the UK where tough drug laws are doing nothing to stop alarming increases in heroin addiction.

    Still, China has a long long way to go. So do many developing nations. Until the incumbent powers that be have embraced Internet themselves, they are onto a loser. Sad, because it is because of reasons like this that the younger generations are not getting enough time in front of the Internet to start noticing the finer netiquette of things, since they are effectively involved in illegal activity just by surfing in those places, and are therefore unlikely to be good netizens...

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:41AM (#3720854)
    As a Yank writing from Shenzhen, China, let me add - lay off the China-bashing, guys. The country is making great strides in dozens of areas. Some hightlights are WTO, urban development, legal/admin legistrative reform, capitalism, technology, and, dare I say it, democracy and human rights. If you want to know more, read about it. The people in this country *stongly* support their government and it's track record of growth, stability and success, and guess what - there's more of 'em than there are you, so under democratic rules, you lose. :)

    And before you start whining about democracy, how many of you voted for your CEO or board of directors? Get over it. ;)
    • Um, the WTO thing was crap. The Chinese are into Cargo Cult Capitalism with no democracy. Yes, they are tough on corruption, but only when the right persons are not paid off.

      China is not a free society, but for US domestic reasons it was given WTO membership before other countries that were far more deserving. The growth is illusory, the stability is at the expense of repressing all forms of dissent. That is unless you are a businessman either in the PRC's army or have contracts with them.

      Many people have issues with the US, but last time I heard, the military didn't run businesses with civillians in special work camps.

      On a final point and more on-topic, I agree that the closing of the cafes is more to do with the extreme fire risk they represent. However this does present a convenient excuse.

    • You're full of crap talking about the WTO. How is that a stride towards anything? Most analysts predict that China's entrance to the WTO is going to decimate the country economically. Especially hard hit are going to be the elderly on a fixed income, and China's extremely shaky banking industry. Also, I'd like some examples on how China's progressing democratically when any sort of dissent (read: Falungong, Christianity, any other religion that doesn't worship the current government) is prevented from meeting and expressing their beliefs.

      "The people in this country *stongly* support their government and it's track record of growth, stability and success"

      The idiocy of this statement is almost overwhelming. Have you ever picked up a history book? How about the cultural revolution? The Great Leap Forward? The civil war between the communists and nationalists? Tiananmen Square? If this is stability and a track record of growth, I'd love to have some of whatever you're smoking. We could go back further too to the thousands of years of warlords and dynasties but your perspective is obviously a little limited.
  • by imrdkl ( 302224 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @04:41AM (#3720856) Homepage Journal
    according to this article [netscape.com] from Yahoo via AP.

    Iron bars prevented the escape of customers, who screamed vainly for help at the windows as the building burned. The cafe was located in a hi-tech sector of the city, with two universities. Most of the dead were students, according to the article.

    New regulations will be drawn up for operation of these Cafes, and those who comply will be allowed to reopen. I suppose that firewalls, as well as fire escapes, will be on the list of requirements.

  • I can see that the chinese government is getting pissed off on all starting internet cafés. It will eventually kill the great tea-culture. What is needed is a proper Internet tea-house that serves both tcp/ip and Assam, Darjeeling, Jasmine and Green tea.
  • by Sapphon ( 214287 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @05:35AM (#3720940) Journal
    ..anymore than "Dog bites man - while he's at his computer"

    There is no way Slashdot would have posted this article if the fire had occurred in any other form of business in china. And trying to pass this off as a human rights/totalitarian government issue is bullshit too.

    this [theage.com.au] is something to get upset about

    This [reuters.com] is a government going nuts

    But this story, is standard practice worldwide. Illegal operations lead to loss of life, crack-down ensues. How much more commonplace [xso.com] can it be?
  • When I first saw the AP story, and later on the network news (Headline, ABC World News Now, MSNBC) I thought about posting this but I figured nahh!

    One source, I believe Headline News, said the bars were in fact put on the windows by the government, although they didn't give a level of government.

    They first reported that the fire started at 2:30 AM and some government officials (city level) had claimed it went out in 15 minutes; although another source said 45 minutes.

    They claimed that the cafe was only open because they are close to the college but they vaguely implied that it was only open because the city watched them or something - didn't make sense.

    So from the first reports it sounded like the city let them use the internet, the fire sounds like it was actually started by someone who works for the chinese government. Then they show up, put the fire out but it burns somewhere between 10 and 60 minutes killing, what, 24 people?

    The people who did the saving was the other citizens; they showed pictures of mainly citizens pulling people out of the windows.

    Then again I'm crazy - sounds like things that happen.
  • by Little Hamster ( 586231 ) on Tuesday June 18, 2002 @05:46AM (#3720956)
    It's very clear that the illegal net cafes are shut down because they're a hazzard to the patrons. Slashdotters are linking it to internet freedom because of the rampant anti communist feelings around.

    As for the anonymity of surfing in an internet cafe as opposed to home, there isn't any, since the government could just required all net cafe to keep a log of their patrons. China have universal ID cards so that won't be hard.

    Just think about what would happen if this was in the US. Kids die in illegal net cafe/pub/dance party warehouse because there aren't any fire exits. Wouldn't you think the parents will all be in an outrage to close all these unsafe places down?
    • Just think about what would happen if this was in the US. Kids die in illegal net cafe/pub/dance party warehouse because there aren't any fire exits. Wouldn't you think the parents will all be in an outrage to close all these unsafe places down?

      It happened in 1942 [cityofboston.gov], but rather than close down all the bars, it was the start of the enforcement of modern fire codes.
  • Is see so many people react to this as if this has something to do with human rights. Claiming that the chinese government is probably trying to close down all the illegal internet cafe's to prevent uncensored surfing.

    HELLO! REALITY CHECK!!! If they can close down all those Internet cafe's now they probably allready know where they are and they did not bother them until now. They HAVE TO close down all the cafe's to check if they aren't possible deathtraps as this one was. The city's mayor is held responsible for things like this. Too many people died just because the place was vitually locked on all doors and windows making it impossible to flee the place. It wasn't the government that locked these doors, it was the owner of the place who is responsible for all this.

    Furthermore, why cry for this to be a HUMAN RIGHTS issue? In the states things are far more worse than you can imagine. Not only government trying to govern the Internet (think about the webfilters in library's and at schools or even about Carnivore) but also companies try to do this. Think about MSN and AOL.

    Of course there are human rights issues in China. No doubt about that, but this is common sense. If you were a mayor of a substantial city what would you do if this happened in your city under your RESPONSIBILITY as you are obliged to safeguard your citizens. My guess is that you would close down as many of these places as you can to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy only to open up those which DO follow fire hazard regulations.

  • In greece, to run a net cafe, as well as have conform to strict regulations (or send certain "incentives" like 300 euros to the mayor), and pay 75 euros a year per computer. Something to do with online gambling laws.
  • These internet parlors are rooms with lots of people and computers. Imagine a hole-in-the-wall pub with cheap drinks operating without a license. We called those bars "drink and pray's" because you drank cheap beer and prayed the building didn't catch fire. These internet parlors are the same type of thing. Being illegal meant they keep semi-hidden which generally means a lack of safety features.

    The fact they could be closed down so quickly means they operated with the government turning a blind eye. I'm sure officials were NOT receiving bribes to ignore them. That never happens.
  • I lived in China for a while. Almost no one obeys the fire code. It wasnt so bad when most buildings were one or two stories, but now lots are built up multi-story and sky-scrapers. Its really scary and you must be alert there. So there must be an additional angle for singling net cafes out. I think it is more that they are an in-your-face profitable illegal business (like half of small urban businesses) rather than free speech. Also many of the victims were young students, and parents (in every country) get more upset when childeren are involved, partiucalry only-sons in China.
  • by rlp ( 11898 )
    From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer [nwsource.com] (AP-Asia):

    Beijing Orders Internet Cafes Closed

    Monday, June 17, 2002
    Last updated at 2:06:53 AM PT

    By AUDRA ANG
    ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

    BEIJING -- Beijing has ordered its 2,400 Internet cafes to close for safety inspections after a fire that killed 24 people in the Chinese capital's university district, state media said Monday.

    The owner of the cafe where the fatal fire broke out before dawn Sunday has surrendered to police, said a woman who answered the phone at the district administration office. She wouldn't give her name or any details, and police weren't immediately available to confirm the report.

    Mayor Liu Qi ordered Internet cafes in Beijing to close while the city draws up new regulations, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

    Cafes that can't meet safety and other standards will be shut down and their property confiscated, Liu was quoted as saying.

    Those that meet the standards will have to reapply for licenses, although the mayor added that he did not want to encourage an increase in the number of cyber cafes, which are immensely popular in this city of 12 million.

    Xinhua said just 200 of Beijing's 2,400 Internet cafes are properly licensed. Many are typically smoky and crowded, located in converted residential buildings or other spaces not necessarily equipped to handle large numbers of customers.

    The fire at the 24-hour Lanjisu Cyber Cafe in the lively Haidian university district broke out early Sunday, when most of the customers were students taking advantage of lower Internet access rates.

    Neighbors said they were awakened by screams for help.

    A survivor, who was identified only by the surname Li, told the state-run newspaper Beijing Times that there were about 30 customers at the cafe, which could seat 100.

    "It was around 3 a.m. when I smelled GASOLINE and saw thick smoke coming up from the bottom of the stairs," said Li, who went to the cafe with about 10 other students from Beijing Technology University.

    "I told a cafe employee who went downstairs to check. He yelled that there was a fire and we all tried to escape," Li said.

    Li said the fire had blocked the stairs and people began yelling for help through the windows, which were covered by iron grills. Neighbors managed to unscrew one grill and Li said he escaped with about seven other people.

    ...
  • Something like this couldn't happen in, say, a bar full of drunks or perhaps a grocery store full of kid-toting mothers? What about a baseball stadium full of sun burnt, half lit aficionados? Hell what about a cubicle farm full of irate programmers? I think this fire could happen anywhere. Their communist government is just looking for reasons to police information. I foresee a violent uprising in China against the government in the next 10 years or so.
  • maybe even less, so its no wonder the Chinese Government is shutting the whole lot down until the Cafe's pass some rudimentary fire instection.

    Sorry for the libertarians out there but this is China reacting to a previously unregulated situation where people DIED.Sorry but this is a country which eats what we in the West consider to be pets. Think about that first.

    The Chinese have a world-wide long tradition of disregarding safety codes, sanitary codes and would serve "long porc" if they though they could get away with it.

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