Beijing,June,27 :China is inching towards the web revolution as Chen Hong and his team of 30 volunteers are working to improve www.ibribery.com, the website which allowed people to post anonymous tips on official bribery.
With approximately 200,000 unique visitors in two weeks, it had proved too popular for the comfort of the “communist government”, which responded by blocking access to the site for people inside China.
A visibly worried Chen pulled the site off net till he could reach an understanding with the government as he “didn't want the site to be perceived as a threat, but more to help them (the government) solve problems that already exist”. However, the government feared that such sites could be used by groups as a tool to rally for anti government and anti establishment protests.
The lack of freedom of speech and the freedom of press, together with government’s tendency to stifle non governmental dissent “to preserve social stability” and a weak judicial system, have further aggravated the problems of common citizens and devoid of any other forum to air their grievances, many of them even “commit suicide".
Public surveys routinely list corruption as the No. 1 grievance of the people despite the numerous campaigns over the past decade by the government to end the menace. "Bribery has just become a way of life in China and everyone is affected\". It has worsened with economic prosperity.
The watchdog group Transparency International\'s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index, which rates countries on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being highly corrupt, and 10 being highly clean, allotted a meager 3.5 for China, the same rating as Thailand, Serbia, Greece and Colombia, while the United States got 7.1, and Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore, which were at the top received 9.3.
And this is despite the harsh punishments imposed on those convicted of corruption charges amongst whom are many senior party politicians and government ministers.
Chen’s website was inspired by an Indian website for similar purposes named, www.ipaidabribe.com, run by a Bangalore-based non-profit group. Later some other bribery centered websites like www.522phone.com and www.wohuixingle.info also surfaced which have now been shut down too due to pressures of the “communist regime”.
Wu Yuliang, a vice chairman of the Communist Party's anti-corruption agency, says that the government values the role that net can play in combating corruption. Still, such websites should operate in accordance to law. \"The government should look at these sites as a good thing and we should encourage similar forums to help push reform, transparency, and more public involvement in China", says He Zengke, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Marxism at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, a Communist Party research institute.
With approximately 450 million netizens, China boasts of the largest numbers of internet users at world level. The net has thus become a convenient forum to air grievances as well as for efforts to circumvent the restrictions on free speech and government control.
Meanwhile Chen planned to apply for a license with China's Internet control body and gain approval to operate the site on the mainland.
By:Rajesh Kumar Pandey
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