BEIJING - AUTHORITIES in China's restive northwestern Xinjiang region on Sunday approved a bill making it a criminal offence for people there to discuss separatism on the Internet, state media reported.

The bill passed by Xinjiang's standing committee bans people in the region from using the Internet in any way that undermines national unity, incites ethnic separatism or harms social stability, the China News Service reported.

The bill requires Xinjiang's Internet service providers and network operators to set up monitoring systems - or strengthen existing ones - and report anyone who breaks the law, the report said.

The bill did not specify what punishment offenders would face, but its apparent aim is to allow authorities to arrest individuals behind e-mails, web postings and sharing of media within the region that they deem to be a threat.

'The introduction of the 'Information Promotion Bill' is timely and necessary,' the report quoted the bill as saying. 'It ensures Internet criminals can be quickly and effectively controlled in the future.'

Several media sites and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are already blocked in China and the country's web censors often do not allow search engines to display results for politically sensitive topics.

The bill said terrorists, separatists and religious extremists used the Internet, telephones and mobile text messages to spread rumours and hatred as violence erupted in the region's capital Urumqi on July 5, the report said.

In one of the biggest known Internet shutdowns anywhere, authorities quickly cut off Internet access in the region and disabled text messages, restricting the flow of information going in and out of Xinjiang.

Despite these efforts exile communities used video-sharing websites such as YouTube to release images of the unrest hours before these appeared on China's state-controlled media. -- AFP