Telephone and internet users in Tibet register under their real names

Beijing has completed a monitoring scheme in Tibet that requires all telephone and internet users to register under their real names, state media said yesterday, as part of a campaign to crack down on what officials describe as rumours.

Tibetans are already closely watched, due to decades of often violent unrest in protest at central government rule, which Beijing blames on the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

The central government last year passed a law mandating the nationwide use of real names to register for internet services and also began forcing users of the Sina Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

Enforcement of similar rules for cellphones, especially pay-as-you-go services, is often lax, though.

By the end of last year, all 2.76 million fixed line and mobile telephone users and 1.47 million internet users in the region had registered for services under their real identities, Xinhua said.

The scheme "is conducive to protecting citizens' personal information and curbing the spread of detrimental information" the report quoted government official Nyima Doje as saying.