Online anti-abduction campaign receives official rebuke

The Ministry of Public Security has poured cold water on a popular online campaign to save abducted children.

Academics and celebrities launched the campaign at the beginning of last year. They called on people to take photographs of child beggars they suspect may have been kidnapped, post them online and send them to as many people as possible.

Those behind the campaign say it will provide clues to parents who have had their children kidnapped and increase the chances of children being rescued.

However, the ministry's social security administration department said on its microblog on Tuesday that virtually none of the photos of children taken by passers-by and posted online are of kidnapped children.

It was responding to an incident in Beijing this month in which someone put a picture of a girl and a woman on the internet and said the girl may have been kidnapped because she spoke a different dialect to the woman. The poster said he had reported the case to the police and was seeking help from other internet users for the girl.

The ministry said its investigation had found that the woman was the girl's aunt.

"A storm of love from the public is touching. But this movement's organisers should be wary," the ministry said. "They can't let people's love be taken advantage of or let the innocent be scarred mentally.