Web addiction instructors face scrutiny

BEIJING - Psychological instructors who resort to violence while treating addicts at Internet addiction rehabilitation centers will be disqualified from continuing their job.

Zhao Jing, director of a national project service center, which is responsible for training and appraising psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts, said the center will fail those who use violence during treatment.

The purpose of the national project is to ensure the mental health of the young is being cared for.

Licenses will be revoked by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security accordingly, Zhao was quoted by Sunday's China Youth Daily as saying.

China began to license psychological instructors for teenage Internet addicts in 2010 and now has 1,567 of them.

Concerns over Internet addiction have resulted in increasing numbers of Internet treatment centers in the past few years, with violence-incurred tragedies being reported.

In 2010, two rehabilitation camp instructors were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison after a 15-year-old was beaten to death at a treatment facility in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

China tops the world with 538 million Internet users.