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Return-Path: owner-fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
From: Felipe Rodriquez <felipe@xs4all.nl>
Subject: Germany censors Dutch and US websites
To: fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 01:53:50 +0200 (MET DST)
Sender: owner-fight-censorship@vorlon.mit.edu
X-URL: http://www.eff.org/~declan/fight-censorship/
X-JusticeOnCampusURL: http://joc.mit.edu/

Hi,

We released this press release today, after we got confirmation
about the censoring of our site going on in Germany. This order
of the German government does not have much effect, the german
providers can only filter us at IP-level. Currently we alternate
the ip-number of this website, to make it more difficult to filter
the site. The page has also been reproduced on other websites by
concerned internet users.

Please forward:


Contact:	XS4ALL Internet BV (http://www.xs4all.nl)
		Postbus 1848
		1000BV Amsterdam
Fax:		+31-20-6274498
Email:		felipe@xs4all.nl


	     * * * P R E S S   R E L E A S E * * *


GERMANY CENSORS DUTCH WEBSITE WWW.XS4ALL.NL, WITH 3100 WEBPAGES


German internetproviders, joined in the Internet Content Taskforce
(ICTF), started censoring the Dutch website www.xs4all.nl, containing
3100 personal and commercial homepages. This act of censorship is
caused by the webpage of a magazine that is banned in Germany, Radikal
(http://www.xs4all.nl/ ~tank/radikal/).

A German prosecutor sent the following message to the ICTF 
(http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm):

  "Under the following addresses in Internet:
  
       http://www.serve.com/spg/154/
       http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal//154/
  
  and using the link on page
  
       http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/angela1/radilink.htm
  
  one can call up the entire edition of the pamphlet entitled radikal Nr.
  154". Parts of this pamphlet justify preliminary suspicion of promoting
  a terrorist organization under ' 129a, Par.3 of the German Criminal
  Code, public condoning of criminal activities penalizable under ' 140
  no.2 of the German Criminal Code and preliminary suspicion of inciting
  to criminal activity under ' 130a Par.1 of the German Criminal Code.
  The Public Prosecutor General at the Federal Court of Justice has
  therefore initiated a criminal investigatory procedure against the
  parties disseminating this pamphlet.
  
  You are herewith informed that you may possibly make yourself subject
  to criminal prosecution for aiding and abetting criminal activities if
  you continue to allow these pages to be called up via your access
  points and network crosspoints"
  

Providers in Germany are already blocking packets to and from the
host www.xs4all.nl. The 3100 websites on this server include the 
Kurdistan Information Network (http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/kurdish/htdocs/),
the popular Internet Charts (http://www.xs4all.nl/~jojo/) and 
the award-winning Chip Directory (http://www.xs4all.nl/~ganswijk/chipdir/).

XS4ALL has not received any request from the German Government regarding
the homepage of Radikal. Without any prior contact the German prosecutor
decided that the XS4ALL website needs to be blocked for German 
Internet Users. XS4ALL is awaiting legal advice, and will investigate
if legal procedures against the German government are possible.

Censorship on Internet usually has the opposite effect. Internetusers
consider it a sport to publish censored materials. Many users have already
published the Radikal website on other Internet hosts. Here are some of
the URL's:

     http://burn.ucsd.edu/%7Eats/RADIKAL/
     http://www.jca.or.jp/~taratta/mirror/radikal/
     http://www.serve.com/~spg/
     http://huizen.dds.nl/~radikal
     http://www.canucksoup.net/radikal/index.html
     http://www.ecn.org/radikal
     http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/
     http://www.connix.com/~harry/radikal/index.htm
     http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/index.htm

Xs4all Internet will rotate the IP-numbering of the website www.xs4all.nl
to ensure that it's 3100 userpages will all remain available for any
internet-user.


<end>






- -- 
 Felipe Rodriquez          -  XS4ALL Internet  - finger felipe@xs4all.nl for 
 http://xs4all.nl/~felipe/ - Managing Director - pub pgp-key 1024/A07C02F9 

  pgp Key fingerprint = 32 36 C3 D9 02 42 79 C6 D1 9F 63 EB A7 30 8B 1A