China blocks YouTube after fake video allegations

China said a video that appears to show police fatally beating a Tibetan protester is a fake concocted by supporters of the Dalai Lama.

The video-sharing network YouTube meanwhile said Beijing has again blocked its service.

The video has been posted on YouTube in recent days.

A spokesman for Google, which owns YouTube, said yesterday that the Chinese government had blocked the service, but that he could not comment on why.

"We are looking into it and working to ensure that the service is restored as soon as possible," spokesman Scott Rubin said.

China occasionally blocks YouTube to prevent access to videos that criticise or shine an unflattering light on its policies. Users in Beijing said they were unable to access the site late yesterday.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that the video came from sources tied to the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, and was pieced together from different places.

The Xinhua report said the footage purports to show a person named Tendar being beaten to death by police after a riot in Lhasa, the Tibet region's capital, on March 14 last year. Xinhua said the person was not in fact Tendar and the wounds shown were fake.

"The Dalai Lama group is used to fabricating lies to deceive the international community and the aim of this video is to hide the truth of the March 14 riot," Xinhua quoted an official as saying.

The government did not directly address whether YouTube had been blocked. When asked, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters: "Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the internet. In fact it is just the opposite."