China blacks out New York Times website

China, which frowns at criticisim from the media, used its strong arm tactics against the New York Times by blocking access to its web site last week with the Chinese foreign ministry saying in no uncertain terms that the country was within its rights to block websites that has contents it considers illegal under Chinese laws.

The NYT reported that when computer users in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou tried to log on to nytimes.com on Friday, they received a message that the site was not available, the newspaper said.

The site could not be accessed from Beijing today without the protection of a virtual private network (VPN).

Chinese officials did not offer any reasons for blocking the NYT's website and the paper reported that a spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs in Beijing told the paper  tht they were "not really familiar with the details,'' and added that eeb site maintenance was not the foreign ministry's job.

Internet users in Hong Kong, however were able to access the website as were users in the US and Japan as well as India.

China, in the past has frequently blocked sites that carry articles not conducive to China which are related to Tibet or criticism of the Communist Party and patrols the Internet with a crack team who instantly will remove unsavory contents and posts as well as block access to sites.

Chinese authorities had blocked the Chinese-language websites of the BBC, Voice of America and Asiaweek, early this month, but have since restored them, while the Hong Kong media Ming Pao News which was blocked last month, continued to be disconnected.

Asiaweek was probably blocked because early this month it carried an article on the taxi strikes in China and its latest front cover pays rich tributes to people who volunteered to work tirelessly on the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, which killed about 80,000 people.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that China has the right to censor Web sites that have contents which are construed illegal by the government and added that other countries regulate their Internet usage too.