Basque Freedom/Web censorship

I agree. I just read about the Spanish government's " peace movement "

spamming the provider that had a Basque-related page until they took it d=

own!

Irish activists will definitely be protesting that one on behalf of those=

 in

a similar freedom struggle. I already sent my protest to peacenet & their

provider. ( SEE BELOW. )



>>>>Basque website under attack





by Eugene McElroy  (for the Irish People)





As this article is being written, the IRA is announcing its plan for a

cease-fire in conjunction with Sinn F=E9in becoming a full partner of

the talks process. But while the six counties take a step back from the

precipice and the world looks on in hope, the war in cyber-space is

heating up to unprecedented levels.



In a development that has serious and direct implications for the

work of Irish Republican cyber-activists the world over, the Institute

for Global Communications (IGC) on Friday, July 18th, suspended a

World Wide Web site supporting Basque independence in Spain, the

Euskal Herria Journal (EHJ) site.



Euskal Herria Journal is a New York-based organization supporting

Basque independence in Spain and France. The Journal's goal was to

publish "information often ignored by the international media and to

build communication bridges for a better understanding of the

conflict."



The site also contained articles on human rights, politics, language,

and lawful Basque groups working for autonomy, as well as a

collection of hyperlinks to sites with views opposed to the ETA.



EHJ has been victimized by a world-wide campaign inspired and no

doubt organized by the Spanish government in an attempt to muzzle

the voice of the Basque independence movement in the wake of the

killing of a hostage, Miguel Angel Blanco, by ETA guerrillas last

Tuesday (July 15th). Blanco had been taken prisoner by ETA, who

demanded the release of Basque political prisoners, or at least

grouping them together in a few prisons in the Basque Country in

exchange for Blanco's release. In a highly charged atmosphere that

riveted the attention of the entire Spanish-speaking world, the

government's predictably refused ETA's demands. Blanco was found

severely wounded. He died a short time later in the hospital on

Tuesday.



By Thursday, reports were coming out from Spain that a systematic

campaign, conducted under the auspices of the Spanish government,

was underway to isolate not only ETA and the political party Herri

Batasuna (HB), but also anyone identified as an "accomplice of ETA."



It came to my attention on Thursday morning, July 17th, while

reading the electronic version of El Pais, a newspaper of record in

Montevideo, Uruguay. El Pais ran an article from the Spanish news

agency EFE saying that ETA and HB were now totally banned from the

Spanish media. But more than that, a group called El Movimiento por

la Paz, el Desarme y la Libertad (Movement for Peace, Disarmament

and Liberty=D0MPDL) was that day beginning a campaign to drive

"immediately" off the Internet web site any pages containing ETA, HB

or Basque independence material, such as the EHJ site. Pressure was to

be applied on web-site servers to deny these pages their facilities.



Within an hour after reading the article in El Pais, a message turned

up on the mailing list for Club Atletico Penarol, the premier soccer

team in Uruguay, whose fortunes I follow with interest. Normally,

the list is for soccer-related items only. But there appeared from a site

in Hong Kong an anonymous message that was very long.



Without any explanation and with many hysterical references to

terrorism, the message urged readers to inundate, or mail-bomb, the

Basque web sites and the sites of the servers that host these pages.



By the next day, Friday July 18th, IGC received a huge number of

protest e-mail messages asking for the removal of one of its Web sites.

Marta, from the EHJ office, reported that Peacenet was choked with

over 7,000 messages demanding the removal of the EHJ page.

Protestors said that the site "supported terrorism" because it contained

material sympathetic to Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), the armed

independence group that has committed widely denounced political

violence in Spain.



This volume was far more than anything IGC-Peacenet could ever

accommodate, and their hand was quickly forced. "It is only under

protest that we have suspended the Euskal Herria Journal site, so that

we can continue to provide basic Internet services to our other

clients," said IGC acting executive director Scott Weikart. "We call on

all those concerned that legal political speech can be forcibly censored

by Internet attacks to stand with us and protest these tactics. If it can

happen to one web site, it can happen to any web site," he said.



During the past week, IGC reported that "...[our] system has suffered

from organized, malicious attacks designed not to communicate with

anyone, but simply to make [our] computers unusable. These included

'mailbombings,' or a large volume of repetitive e-mail messages

intended to overwhelm the computers handling e-mail, and 'denial

of service' assaults aimed at overwhelming IGC connections to the

Internet."



Aiding the attack was the Spanish government's own official request,

tendered to the American news service CNN, to de-link the EHJ web

site from CNN's main page. CNN has refused to do this. What lends

suspicion to the notion of a government coordinated "peace

movement" is that although the small IGC server was "bombed," the

"bombing campaign" was coordinated enough that no attempt has

been made to mail-bomb the CNN offices. This would have been a

public-relations disaster for the government and the movement. It

implies a high degree of coordination to make sure that the campaign

did not spin out of its makers' control; rather astounding, given the

highly-decentralized nature of the Internet.



No one wants violence or wants war, and the decision to enter into

one is fraught with danger and pain. The desire for peace and order is

universal. But a clear distinction must be made between a genuine

desire for peace, and the manipulation of peace rhetoric, imagery and

symbolism for the purpose of hiding the political goals of the state

sponsors of the conflict.



No one can know for sure how the next swing on the cyber-war will

strike. The example of the suppression of the Basque list is extremely

ominous. Our turn might be next. Take it as a warning: When the

time does come and Republican cyber-activists call out for your

support to defend a list or a web site, you must be ready to give it.

Whether you own a terminal or not, Irish Republicans cannot

relinquish the hard-won ground on the Internet.



* Please support our Basque friends. Contact Peacenet today and

demand they stand by EHJ and not cave in to state-sponsored

cybermania (see below)





          *****************************************

>>>>Support freedom of speech on the internet





Contact: Eugene McElroy 





"We call on your support to free speech and dissident thought

and, as a group committed to peace with justice, to our right to

remain part of the IGC progressive community." - Euskal Herria

Journal





Contact IGC/Peacenet and tell them to restore the Basque websites.

When you call them, identify yourself as an activist in the struggle for

a united Ireland. Ask IGC: If this can happen to our Basque comrades,

is this the type of treatment we can also expect at some point when

some MI5/Special Branch "Peace Movement" is mobilized to knock

Irish Republican sites off of the Internet?



Please remember that IGC are not the enemy. However disappointig

their action was, they had the proverbial gun to their head. They

hosted EHJ originally and in my experience with them were always

supportive of the efforts of cyber-Republicans. It's though by some

activists that even though IGC backed down in the face of the

mail-bomb onslaught, IGC certainly objects to it. The action was taken

under protest and "duress." Let them know you support them in the

struggle for freedom of expression on the Web, as in this case with

EHJ.



Scott Weikart, IGC Acting Executive Director, scott@igc.org



Institute for Global Communications (IGC)--Internet Host

PeaceNet/EcoNet/ConflictNet/LaborNet/WomensNet

Presidio Building 1012, First Floor

Torney Avenue

PO Box 29904

San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

Tel: +1 (415) 561 6100

Fax: +1 (415) 561 6101



E-mail: igc-info@igc.apc.org

PeaceNet: peacenet@igc.org