Zhang Ziyi's topless photos on Net

Zhang Ziyi's topless photos on Net
By Peh Shing Huei , CHINA BUREAU CHIEF


Zhang Ziyi was shown taking off her red bikini and lying face down with her buttocks exposed. -- PHOTO: APPLE DAILY

BEIJING: More than 80 pictures of China's top actress Zhang Ziyi sunbathing topless and frolicking on a beach have appeared on the Internet, sending netizens here wild on Tuesday.

It comes just a day after the Chinese government sent out stern warnings to 19 top websites for pornography and vulgarity.

The pictures, taken by a Los Angeles-based paparazzi agency, showed Zhang on the Caribbean island of St Barts with her fiance, Israeli investor Vivi Nevo, last Friday.

The star of the Hollywood blockbuster Memoirs of a Geisha was shown taking off her red bikini and lying face down with her buttocks exposed.

The websites, including Google, were warned by Chinese authorities to do more to block pornographic material from reaching Chinese users.

The crackdown focused on pornography but is part of a larger Chinese effort to control freedom of expression and root out material it considers destabilising, such as sites that criticise the Communist Party, promote democratic reform or advocate Taiwan independence.

Pornography is banned in China but remains widely available on and off the Internet. Popular Chinese Web portals frequently show sexually explicit pictures and provide links to pornographic websites.

The announcement on Monday said Google and Baidu, China's two most heavily used search engines, had failed to take 'efficient' measures after receiving notices from the country's Internet watchdog that they were providing links to pornographic material.

Google asserted that it abides by Chinese law and does not generate pornographic content.

The statement also criticised popular Web portals Sina and Sohu, as well as a number of video sharing sites and popular online bulletin boards such as Tianya, that it said contain problematic photos, blogs and postings.

It was unclear what the government classifies as pornographic but it said seven government agencies will work together on the campaign to 'purify the Internet's cultural environment and protect the healthy development of minors,' the notice said.

The statement, which was posted to a news and information website managed by the State Council, said violators will be severely punished, but did not give details. The official Xinhua News Agency said the national campaign would last for one month.

It is unlikely anything other than a fine will be meted out to offenders, Goldkorn said, and the move more likely signifies a need for a quick clean-up ahead of the Chinese Spring Festival, or new year, at the end of this month.

Private Chinese websites often hire their own censors to delete sensitive content and images can be erased quickly at the behest of the authorities, he said. This happened early last year when explicit photos of Hong Kong actor Edison Chen and several female partners performing sex acts circulated online. Chinese authorities arrested or detained nearly a dozen people for circulating the photos.

China has the world's largest population of Internet users with more than 250 million, and China's attitude to love and sex has changed markedly since it was denounced as a bourgeois decadence under Mao Zedong, a byproduct of rising prosperity and looser government restrictions on private life.

Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_322632.html

Ziyi unfazed by photos


Pictures of actress Zhang Ziyi at a beach (pictured), including those of her sunbathing topless, have appeared on the Internet and newspapers in Asia. -- PHOTOS: X17ONLINE.COM, SINA.COM


Beijing - Actress Zhang Ziyi has bundled up and gone on with work, never mind that pictures of her sunbathing topless on a beach have been splashed across the front pages of newspapers in Asia.

Sina news website said that when the photos appeared online on Monday, she was filming a romantic comedy, Sophie's Revenge, in wintry Tianjin.

After news portals and newspapers published the pictures, she continued with her work and shot scenes with Korean actor So Ji Sub, the report said.

It quoted crew members as saying she did not seem too affected by the fuss about the photos. It also posted pictures of Zhang all wrapped up and filming.

The movie is about cartoonist Sophie (Zhang), who falls in love with a surgeon (So) and plots her revenge after an actress steals him from her.

Her topless photos came a year after the explicit sex pictures of actor Edison Chen and his female celebrity partners, including actress-singer Gillian Chung, were circulated online.

Although Chen had to quit Hong Kong showbusiness and Chung's career has suffered, Zhang seems set to come out of the incident with her career intact.

According to Ming Pao Daily News, investors in the film went to the set to show that they would stand by her despite the incident.

Some of the advertisers she is signed on to also said they would not drop her, the report added.

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