Cutting Internet not effective anti-terror measure: expert

Officials in Kashi in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region dismissed rumors of an Internet blackout plan through its official Sina Weibo account on Wednesday.

A fake document has been circulating in Xinjiang in the last few days stating that the Xinjiang government would shut down the Internet in the southern part of the region including the Kashi, Hotan and Aksu areas from June 5.

The Kashi government posted the fake document on its Weibo and pointed out the flaws.

There is no Department of Industry and Information Technology in Xinjiang as stated in the document. The Uyghur language is absent from the seal stamp on the notice. The document format is also wrong, the Kashi government stated in its microblog.

This document has been widely circulated on Weibo and mobile instant messaging service WeChat in the last few days, a Kashi-based Web company manager surnamed Yuan told the Global Times.

Yuan said that armed police started patrols to guard local communities in Kashi on Wednesday.

The Internet was blocked in Xinjiang for nearly a year in the wake of deadly riots in July 2009, to prevent the spread of violence, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The information blockage and frequent rumor-spreading have subsequently led to economic recession in Xinjiang, Pan Zhiping, an expert on terrorism issues at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

The local economy was vibrant after Kashi became a special economic zone in 2010, said Yuan. But recently the economy has declined and investors have been moving out over fear of terror attacks.

The government has to stop rumors from spreading so as to prevent more investors from removing their business from Xinjiang, Yuan noted.

Pan said the Internet is unlikely to be cut off again because such a measure is not effective in curbing the spread of terrorist information and rumors.

A series of anti-terror initiatives have been rolled out to prevent the spread of terrorism in China. The State Internet Information Office announced Wednesday that China is to begin a campaign to crack down on the spreading of terrorism-related videos and audio files across the country.

Beijing police also started a campaign on Tuesday to collect opinions from ethnic minorities on public security and anti-terror measures. Top officers on Tuesday visited restaurants, markets and schools where ethnic minorities cluster. They asked about the difficulties they face in daily life, and distributed pamphlets on measures of security precautions.

Over 200 people were arrested in connection to dissemination of terrorist videos by Xinjiang police from the end of March until early May. The arrests came weeks after the regional government announced a ban on spreading these videos online or by using portable storage devices.