China has closed a Web site providing news and information to the country's lesbian and gay community, according to press reports.

The www.gaychinese.net site has apparently been blocked since April, with its manager telling the AFP agency that the government claims it is too explicit.

However, site manager Damien Lu says the site was purely providing an online news resource to the many lesbian and gay people in China.

A popular AIDS activist said the closure of the Chinese language Web site would hit the gay community hard, telling Agence France-Presse that the content was vital to many vulnerable people and their families.

The site can still be accessed from any other country.

A film festival was forced to move from the Beijing University campus in April, reportedly because of its content.

In other Chinese news, the southern Guangdong Province is offering free, confidential HIV tests to gay men.

According to the China Daily newspaper, the free services are available through June 10, and the monthlong health promotion will become an annual event.

Jin Jianxing, an official with the provincial health agency who is coordinating the tests, estimated that gay men make up from 2 to 4 percent of the Guangdong population.

The prosperous province had 5,051 AIDS cases at the end of last year, but a public health official estimated that there may be 30,000 "underground" cases of people living with HIV/AIDS.

Editor: Wing