Chinese internet addicts stage mutiny at boot camp

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7145877.ece

Jane Macartney, Beijing

Fourteen young detainees overcame their guard and fled a boot camp regime of physical training and psychological treatment designed to cure their addiction — to the internet.

The group, aged 15 to 22, staged their mass breakout by grabbing a duty supervisor when he was in bed and immobilising him in his quilt.

He shouted for help and they apologised before tying him up. They then made their way in groups of three to the home town of the leader of the group.

The addicts made their break from the Huai’an Internet Addiction Treatment Centre in eastern Jiangsu province last Wednesday, complaining that they could no longer endure its “monotonous work and intensive training”.
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It is the latest incident to highlight the sometimes brutal techniques employed at camps across China to wean young people off the internet. A 15-year-old boy was beaten to death last year days after he was admitted to a camp. Last month a court sentenced two instructors to up to ten years in jail for the incident.

The China Youth Association for Network Development estimates that about 24 million Chinese adolescents are addicted to the internet, many to gambling sites.

For the recent escapees freedom proved short lived. A taxi driver alerted police after the young men were unable to pay the fare. There was little sympathy from their exasperated parents either, who had paid 18,000 yuan (£1,830) for their children to receive six months’ treatment at the camp.

Most insisted that their children should go back to the camp at once and since the breakout all but one have been returned.

One mother wept at the police station when she described how her son once spent 28 consecutive hours playing online games. A camp official justified the methods used to cure the addiction, saying: “We have to use military style methods such as total immersion and physical training on these young people. We need to teach them some discipline and help them to establish a regular lifestyle.”

The camp requires its “inmates” to be up at 5am and in bed at 9.30pm. During the day they must undergo two hours of physical drills, as well as courses in calligraphy, traditional Chinese philosophy and receive counselling.

Yang Guihua, the mother of the youth who orchestrated the escape, said that her son must return and defended the treatment. She said: “I don’t think there is any problem with the training methods at the centre. They are for my child’s own good.”

• China underscored its commitment to keeping a tight grip on the internet yesterday, vowing in a new White Paper to block anything deemed subversive or a threat to national unity.

It said that it wanted to boost internet usage to 45 per cent of the population in the next five years but gave no indication that it would ease the Great Firewall, which blocks websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.