Magazine shut down following "sexy" earthquake pictures

UPDATE: More photos are available here (link in Chinese). We should warn you that they are pretty tasteless though. (h/t to Danwei)

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The New Travel Weekly (旅游新报), a Chongqing based magazine, has been closed down by the government after it ran a series of pictures of scantily clad models surrounded by rubble at the start of this week's 3-day period of mourning for the lives lost in the Sichuan earthquake. Government officials in the city said that the publication had been shut down for "rectification", deeming the photos to be an "extremely evil social influence" that "seriously violated propaganda discipline and went against social morals".

A reopening of the magazine under new leadership was not ruled out by the government however, according to a report on News24.com, after the publication's owners announced that the Editor-in-chief, Editor, and Deputy Editor had all been sacked:

"If the outcome of the rectification is satisfactory, it is possible to reopen the magazine," an employee of the press and publication department with the family name Cai told AFP.

"After all, only part of the staff made the decision to print that shoot. It wouldn't be fair to just close it for good."

The photo spread featured models posing amongst collapsed buildings and peering out from beneath rubble along with the characters "灾难" (disaster). Unsurprisingly, many people took offense at the photos and found them highly insensitive, resulting in the government's shutting down of the publication.

In related news, Global Voices reports that an ethnically diverse website by the name of Uighur Online has also been shut down by the powers that be "for reasons that everyone knows".

Pictures from Sina.com (sorry for the poor quality)