Beijing law enforcement officers have been forced to drop charges against a housewife who organized online chats in the nude as there is no basis in law to prosecute her.

Judicial authorities in Shijinshan, a district in west Beijing, announced that they recently withdrew charges against the 36-year-old woman surnamed Li who was charged almost three years ago with "organizing pornographic activities."

Prosecutors said that in July 2004 Li stripped off her cloths and chatted with people in nude using her webcam. She later organized online chats for nudists.

Li was traced and arrested by the police of Shijinshan District and the district procuratorate charged her.

Law officers soon discovered they were facing a legal "blind spot" as nude chat rooms were not defined in China's porn laws.

In September 2004, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued a judicial interpretation on pornographic activities on the Internet but it didn't include live webcam chats.

The punishment for the distribution of pornographic materials shall depend the number of hits, pictures, and words on a web site, said court sources.

A prosecutor in Shijinshan, who refused to be named, said his office couldn't prove that Li had committed the criminal act of disseminating pornographic materials.

"Under existing laws, it is inappropriate to treat this as a criminal offence," he said.

The Shijinshan district court found there was little legal basis for the charge and turned down the case, forcing the procuratorate to withdraw the charge.