Beijing - China has blocked at least two more websites of foreign news media since the opening of its National People's Congress (NPC) on March 5, a media rights group said on Friday.
The Chinese language sites of the Wall Street Journal and Germany's Deutsche Welle were blocked since the opening of the NPC, Reporters Without Borders said.
The Paris-based media rights group said China's ruling Communist Party "seems to be getting even tougher" in curbing freedom of speech.
"We note that the Chinese leadership is tightening the screws on the Internet even further by attacking the major Western media," it said in a statement.
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'China is the world's largest prison for cyber-dissidents' The group said hundreds of thousands of websites, including its own, were blocked in China.
"With 60 people behind bars, China is the world's largest prison for cyber-dissidents," it said.
China has introduced tough rules and sophisticated policing of the Internet in recent years, including controls on service providers and cyber cafés.
Yet the blocking of foreign news sites often appears arbitrary. The websites of major Western English-language newspapers, including the New York Times and The Guardian, were not blocked on Friday.
Voice of America was blocked, as were the Asian news pages and Chinese-language site of the BBC.
But all English-language content on the CNN website was accessible, including a story about a sensitive letter calling for a reassessment of the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. - Sapa-dpa
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