A global online signature campaign has been launched by a Chinese website to protest media distortions of the March 14 Lhasa riot in Tibet.

The campaign, with its name written in red Chinese characters, appeared on Friday on the home page of Sina.com, an influential portal in the country.

By 1 p.m., the campaign had collected more than 870,000 signatures, mostly in Chinese, from around the world. Their identity, however, could not be verified.

Around 9:30 a.m., there were about 830,000 signatures, but the number was rising at a rate of about 12,000 an hour.

The campaign's organizer and its starting time remained unknown. Sina's office telephone was busy throughout the morning.

Signatories were required to type in their names and location if they wished to show their support. The instructions of the signature campaign reads as follows: "Some Western media have reported distorted and untruthful stories on the Lhasa riot in early March. If you wish to protest the distorted coverage, please sign your name here."

According to updated information on the Sina website, by 1:25 p.m., more than 90,000 signatures, or about 11 percent of the total, were from Beijing, with the provinces of Guangdong and Jiangxi closely following, accounting for 8.03 percent and 7.33 percent, respectively, of the total.

The list also included 27,000 overseas Chinese from 150 countries as of 1:25 p.m.. More than 5,490 signatures were from the United States and accounted for about 21 percent of the total overseas signatures. Canada and Australia ranked second and third, respectively, with more than 2,500 and 2,000 signatures each.

A forum link is also provided on the website to solicit public views on the Lhasa riot.

Most netizens issued bulletins with hardline comments, some of whom objected to foreign leaders' meeting with the Dalai Lama.

One bulletin issued by a Lhasa citizen read "No Chinese citizen would approve any activity to secede Tibet from China. Dalai Lama is a fake Monk".

Netizens also linked the subject to China's Tomb-sweeping Day, which falls today.

A Beijing signatory wrote "May the innocent souls rest in peace today. The reporters who wrote the distorted stories owe you an apology".

Another from from Qingdao, Shandong Province, wrote "It was touching to see so many netizens support the signature campaign. I see the unity of the nation".

(Xinhua News Agency April 4, 2008)