Slashdot Mirror
Complete Net Cafe Shutdown After Beijing Fire
lunchlady doris writes: "The BBC has this story that tells of a fire in an internet cafe in Beijing that killed 24 people. The mayor responded to this tragedy by shutting down all 2,400 cafes in the city, most of which are operated illegally. Only 200 cafes will be allowed to reopen, pending municipal regulation. Needless to say, the netizens of Beijing are pissed and see this as a move to quash the limited access to the net that the Chinese people currently have."
Recently China's been acting quite belligerently towards N. Korean refugees trying to escape into the embassies of free nations. The first one was the Japanese embassy on May 10. The latest one was a few days ago at the S. Korean embassy. They have been entering embassy grounds and forcibly removing refugees from sovereign territory.
This closing of Internet cafes is indicative of something, perhaps a new crackdown on freedoms as the Chinese populace is exposed to more and more visions of freedom seekers being beat down at the gates of the S. Korean embassy or a mother and grandmother beaten up at the Japanese embassy.
I have been pwned because my
... the Chinese gov would admit it's responsibilities regarding the incident did you? If the internet cafe was allowed to be legal, no emergency exits would be locked. Sorry, no sig.
"You laugh at me because I am different. I laugh at you because you're all the same." --Vick Imbornoni
It's easy to jump on the mayor for being a censor tyrant for this action, and some conspiracy buffs will undoubtedly claim the fire was set by the authorities on purpose. I think the real cause is the cavalier lack of any safety measures. Most of these cafés were illegal most likely because they didn't conform to any sort of building codes or grease the right palms.
After the excitement dies back down, several of these cafés will be up and running again, most likely under new aliases and at new locations.
I doubt that this will have more than a temporary effect. Even on fire safety.
I write to clear things up just in case some people immediate jumping into issues of free speech and human rights.
:(
The students are killed as all possible exits were either blocked or locked up.
The building has only one entrance/exit, and it was locked at the time of fire, and the windows were barred with steel. As a matter of fact the owner didn't get proper license to open an Internet cafe and the door was always locked to avoid inspection. The windows were barred to prevent thievery, and it's not unusual to see many factories and commercial buildings have their windows barred for this reason.
As a result the authority shutdown all Internet cafes for safety and license inspection. In fact only 1/10 of the Internet cafes got proper commercial license for. It's not an action against civilians' Internet access, at least not directly.
Of course, I'd expect people in Beijing has tough time accessing Internet in the future, as the conservative people would sneak chance to impose more restrictions.
If that would have been any other kind of building in town, nobody else would care.
The reality is that, "Investigators blamed the high death toll on locked emergency exits. " This is all there is to the story.
Shit happens.
As a Yank writing from Shenzhen, China, let me add - lay off the China-bashing, guys. The country is making great strides in dozens of areas. Some hightlights are WTO, urban development, legal/admin legistrative reform, capitalism, technology, and, dare I say it, democracy and human rights. If you want to know more, read about it. The people in this country *stongly* support their government and it's track record of growth, stability and success, and guess what - there's more of 'em than there are you, so under democratic rules, you lose. :)
;)
And before you start whining about democracy, how many of you voted for your CEO or board of directors? Get over it.
Iron bars prevented the escape of customers, who screamed vainly for help at the windows as the building burned. The cafe was located in a hi-tech sector of the city, with two universities. Most of the dead were students, according to the article.
New regulations will be drawn up for operation of these Cafes, and those who comply will be allowed to reopen. I suppose that firewalls, as well as fire escapes, will be on the list of requirements.
..anymore than "Dog bites man - while he's at his computer"
There is no way Slashdot would have posted this article if the fire had occurred in any other form of business in china. And trying to pass this off as a human rights/totalitarian government issue is bullshit too.
this is something to get upset about
This is a government going nuts
But this story, is standard practice worldwide. Illegal operations lead to loss of life, crack-down ensues. How much more commonplace can it be?
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
It's very clear that the illegal net cafes are shut down because they're a hazzard to the patrons. Slashdotters are linking it to internet freedom because of the rampant anti communist feelings around.
As for the anonymity of surfing in an internet cafe as opposed to home, there isn't any, since the government could just required all net cafe to keep a log of their patrons. China have universal ID cards so that won't be hard.
Just think about what would happen if this was in the US. Kids die in illegal net cafe/pub/dance party warehouse because there aren't any fire exits. Wouldn't you think the parents will all be in an outrage to close all these unsafe places down?
Is see so many people react to this as if this has something to do with human rights. Claiming that the chinese government is probably trying to close down all the illegal internet cafe's to prevent uncensored surfing.
HELLO! REALITY CHECK!!! If they can close down all those Internet cafe's now they probably allready know where they are and they did not bother them until now. They HAVE TO close down all the cafe's to check if they aren't possible deathtraps as this one was. The city's mayor is held responsible for things like this. Too many people died just because the place was vitually locked on all doors and windows making it impossible to flee the place. It wasn't the government that locked these doors, it was the owner of the place who is responsible for all this.
Furthermore, why cry for this to be a HUMAN RIGHTS issue? In the states things are far more worse than you can imagine. Not only government trying to govern the Internet (think about the webfilters in library's and at schools or even about Carnivore) but also companies try to do this. Think about MSN and AOL.
Of course there are human rights issues in China. No doubt about that, but this is common sense. If you were a mayor of a substantial city what would you do if this happened in your city under your RESPONSIBILITY as you are obliged to safeguard your citizens. My guess is that you would close down as many of these places as you can to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy only to open up those which DO follow fire hazard regulations.
It's killing many birds with one stone. Some reasonable, some not necessarily so. 200 to service the needs formerly filled by 2,400 is extreme. Other measures could have been taken, but this seems usually draconian. Rather than address the conditions before the fire, they use it as the club to subdue the people, yet again.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Nobody in China really cares about fire safety. Have a look around there and you'll see what I mean. Discos and nightclubs are really death traps. No doubt the internet cafes are too. The problem is compounded by the fact that Chinese cooking is a serious fire hazard in itself. Fires are unbelievably common in Chinese cities. You see them all the time.