China has shut down websites, made a string of arrests and punished two popular microblogs after rumours of a coup linked to a major scandal that brought down a top politician. Authorities closed 16 websites for spreading rumours of “military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing”, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the state Internet information office. Police arrested six people, while the country’s two most popular microblogs, run by Sina.com and Tencent, said they would stop users from posting comments to other people’s posts until Tuesday. The crackdown follows a surge in unsubstantiated online rumours about a coup led by security chief Zhou Yongkang, following the March dismissal of rising political star Bo Xilai. Analysts say the political drama has exposed divisions in the ruling Communist Party as it prepares for a key leadership transition later this year. Bo, removed as party chief of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing after his former police chief fled to a US consulate and reportedly demanded political asylum, had been tipped to join the country’s top echelons of power. His downfall was only lightly covered by China’s tightly controlled state media, opening the way for groundless rumours about a coup to spread on the Internet. In another sign of the state’s tight policing of the web — known as the “Great Firewall” — Xinhua said 1,065 people had been arrested since February 14 during an operation in Beijing to combat Internet crime. More than 3,000 websites had also received warnings after police targeted the smuggling of firearms, drugs and toxic chemicals, and the sale of human organs and personal information online, Xinhua said. In an editorial, the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, pledged to punish those responsible for the “lies and speculation”.
