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What Internet? China region cut off 6 months now
LIUYUAN, China – They arrive at this gritty desert crossroads weary from a 13-hour train ride but determined. The promised land lies just across the railway station plaza: a large, white sign that says "Easy Connection Internet Cafe."
The visitors are Internet refugees from China's western Xinjiang region, whose 20 million people been without links to the outside world since the government blocked virtually online access, text messages and international phone calls after ethnic riots in July. It's the largest and longest such blackout in the world, observers say.
Every weekend, dozens of people pile off the train in Liuyuan, a sandswept town on the ancient Silk Road that's the first train stop outside Xinjiang, 400 miles (650 kilometers) east of Urumqi, the regional capital.
"We must get online! We must!" said Zhao Yan, a petite, ponytailed businesswoman from Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi. She has rented the same private booth in the Internet cafe every weekend since August in an uphill battle to keep her small trading business going.
"If this goes on another couple of months, I'll have to give up," Zhao said. "I can't keep up with the outside world, and I'm losing money."
Xinjiang residents are without Internet links unless they flee to farflung places like Liuyuan. One customer had traveled 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) just to get online.
Authorities unplugged Xinjiang, a sprawling area three times the size of Texas, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the ethnic rioting between the Han Chinese majority and the mainly Muslim Uighur minority that the government says left almost 200 dead. China's government blamed overseas activists for the riots, saying they stirred up resentment in the Uighur community through Web sites and e-mails.
For many, it feels like being thrown back in time 30 years.
Xinjiang now has no e-mail. No blogs. No instant messaging. The government this month promised Internet access would resume "gradually," but it also said the same thing in July and not much has changed. So far, only four restricted Web sites, half of them state-run media, have returned.
More - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/...RpbnRlcm5ldA--
LIUYUAN, China – They arrive at this gritty desert crossroads weary from a 13-hour train ride but determined. The promised land lies just across the railway station plaza: a large, white sign that says "Easy Connection Internet Cafe."
The visitors are Internet refugees from China's western Xinjiang region, whose 20 million people been without links to the outside world since the government blocked virtually online access, text messages and international phone calls after ethnic riots in July. It's the largest and longest such blackout in the world, observers say.
Every weekend, dozens of people pile off the train in Liuyuan, a sandswept town on the ancient Silk Road that's the first train stop outside Xinjiang, 400 miles (650 kilometers) east of Urumqi, the regional capital.
"We must get online! We must!" said Zhao Yan, a petite, ponytailed businesswoman from Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi. She has rented the same private booth in the Internet cafe every weekend since August in an uphill battle to keep her small trading business going.
"If this goes on another couple of months, I'll have to give up," Zhao said. "I can't keep up with the outside world, and I'm losing money."
Xinjiang residents are without Internet links unless they flee to farflung places like Liuyuan. One customer had traveled 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) just to get online.
Authorities unplugged Xinjiang, a sprawling area three times the size of Texas, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the ethnic rioting between the Han Chinese majority and the mainly Muslim Uighur minority that the government says left almost 200 dead. China's government blamed overseas activists for the riots, saying they stirred up resentment in the Uighur community through Web sites and e-mails.
For many, it feels like being thrown back in time 30 years.
Xinjiang now has no e-mail. No blogs. No instant messaging. The government this month promised Internet access would resume "gradually," but it also said the same thing in July and not much has changed. So far, only four restricted Web sites, half of them state-run media, have returned.
More - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/...RpbnRlcm5ldA--