<nettime> Internet Censorship strikes NGOs

["nettime's shop steward" <nettime@Desk.nl>]

[From <http://www.labournet.org.uk/1998/May/ngostat.html>. LabbourNet
 <http://www.labournet.org.uk/index.html> offers "Computer Communica-
 tions and News for the Labour Movement" (English, Deutsch, Espaņol),
 with a heavy emphasis on port workers.]

Internet Censorship strikes NGOs

The British company Biwater plc has recently threatened two non-profit
Internet Service Providers, GreenNet in the UK and SangoNet in South Africa,
with legal action to make them censor users' material. The materials
referred to old newspaper articles about the company's involvement in links
between British Government aid and UK arms sales.

In both cases, the ISPs were hosting material which contained information
which was already publicly accessible from a vast number of sources outside
the Internet. The material the company wanted to censor was old, but
Biwater's action has brought it back to life and rekindled great interest
for a world-wide audience.

The information threatened was part of a LabourNet campaign against the
privatisation of water resources in South Africa. Biwater has not only
threatened to sue the above mentioned Internet Providers, but also the South
African newspaper Mail and Guardian.

Because of the company's attempt to censor this information, some members of
the APC network have decided to make the pages available to the Internet
community. The pages are available from LabourNet special Biwater sites in
Denmark and The Netherlands.

LabourNet promotes computer communications as a medium for strengthening and
building organised labour. They are in the forefront of using the resources
of the internet to provide communications, news and information for the
labour movement.

The Association for Progressive Communication (APC) is a global network
which works to enable communication between organisations working for social
chance. APC, Association for Progressive Communication, have users in over
100 countries and our mission is to create space and tools for them to
communicate, debate, exchange information and in some areas in the world to
have a voice at all.

APC has enabled communications between people during war, under
dictatorships, and in areas of poverty where the financial means makes it
hard to communicate at all. And to create a space for NGOs in the industrial
and democratical countries, where normal freedom of speech is used to
express various facts and opinions without problems.

We believe all people should have the right to use the Internet in order to
seek out the truth. It's by sharing of information the truth can be reached.

Inform - APC in Denmark
Antenna - APC in the Netherlands
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