A Chinese legislator calls for the early addition of a clause to the existing "Criminal Law" in a bid to ban the production, copying and spread of pornographic material on the Internet, which has been going rampant in recent years.

Tong Haibao, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) and a local chief procurator from Ma'anshan city of east China's Anhui Province, said that online production, marketing and transmission of pornographic material was much more influential, faster and therefore more hazardous than any traditional way of production, spread of pornographic material.

He accused some of China's commercial Internet content providers of using a variety of pornographic materials, such as pornographic pictures and "sex guides", to attract netizens.

By January of 2003, China's websites totaled 370,000 with a combined population of approximately 60 million netizens, 17.6 percent of whom are minors, according to the official China Internet Information Center.

A recent survey found that 46 percent of the 3,000 students from middle schools, colleges and universities sampled were quite experienced in accessing to online pornographic materials.

Nevertheless, there is not yet any specific article in the Criminal Law to deal with online pornography, said the NPC deputy.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2004)