FIVE people were detained in Shenzhen for producing and selling CDs containing photos allegedly to be of Hong Kong entertainer Edison Chen seen in compromising positions with different female celebrities.

Shenzhen police said at a press conference Tuesday that they had also confiscated about 250 such discs a week ago, in addition to six computers used to produce the discs, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

Two of the detainees, only identified by their last names Jiang, 19, and Ma, 27, were being questioned by police. The other three were being detained for five days, the paper said.

“The police authorities will severely crack down on the criminal activities of manufacturing, selling and distributing discs of Hong Kong’s nude celebrity photos and other porn productions,” an unnamed police spokesman was quoted as saying by the paper.

Meanwhile, Beijing police announced at a press conference yesterday that anyone caught sending more than 200 copies of the photos through the Internet, even for free, could be detained for 15 days.

It is also illegal to post the pictures on blogs, they said.

Many Internet users are asking their friends to send them the photos, as the pictures are currently unavailable on major Web sites.

Pictures with the subjects’ private parts blurred are not obscene, according to Beijing police.

Police have launched a national campaign to crack down on the distribution of the photos in the form of CDs or through the Internet. Concerned citizens have been asked to report violators to the police.

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Last month, photos allegedly of the Canadian-born Chen caught in sexual acts with various Hong Kong starlets surfaced on the Internet and have spread like wildfire ever since.

Thirteen mainland Web sites recently issued a joint statement asking other sites not to run the photos.

More than 40 domestic Web sites have supported the statement and many Internet users have pledged not to download or spread the photos.

Chinese search engine Baidu.com has been asked by an Internet self-discipline organization in Beijing to make a public apology for helping spread the obscene photos.

(Xinhua)