WikiLeaks: Great firewall of China blocks access to latest revelations
In news that’s even less surprising than revelations that Silvio Berlusconi is perhaps a bit vain and that Colonel Gaddafi is ever so slightly mental, China’s Internet regulators have today blocked access across the country to the latest batch of WikiLeaks exposés.
While perhaps in no small part due to the inclusion of a document linking the Chinese government to the hacking of Google’s computer systems, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei nevertheless said in a statement today that the decision to block WikiLeaks was made to protect relations with the US.
Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, Lei said: “China takes note of the government reports. We hope the U.S. side will handle the relevant issues.
“As for the content of the documents, we will not comment on that.”
Access to the WikiLeaks Cablegate site, as well as a number of Chinese language news articles covering the topic, have been off limits to Chinese surfers since Monday. Other articles from the Chinese press that are accessible on the web appear to only detail the U.S. response.
The development comes amid news that Julian Assange’s whistle blowing website was again the subject of a denial of service attack today.
WikiLeaks confirmed the latest attack in an update to its Twitter feed this afternoon.
The attack follows attempts to down the site on Sunday night in the run-up to the site’s publication of thousands of top-secret US diplomatic cables.
