(Note from moderator: one interesting twist in this conflict, according to the article below, is that one of the charges brought by a right-wing Spanish paper against this Basque Web site is that they might use encryption in the pursuit of terrorism.--Andy) Sender: •••@••.••• Zurich, 2nd April 1996 *** Political Censorship on the Internet *** Attentate against the Freedom of Speech and Privacy Rights through a cyberterroristic attack against the publication of informations about the Basque Country on Internet Dear Sirs and Madams, We invite you to a *** Press Conference *** presenting the new Basque Web-site on the Internet on Wednesday, the 10th April of 1996, at 11 am in the International Press Center, Brussel (Press Room, 5th floor; 1, Bvd. Charlemagne) with the presence of a member of the "Euskadi Koordination" (Basque Solidarity Committee) from Switzerland, a representative of the "Union for the Rights and Freedom of Computer Communication and Information" from Belgium and a representative of the "Basque Association for Freedom of= Speech". The Internet is 'in'; unsolved and complicated political problems are 'out'. And what happens when a Solidarity Committee with Euskadi from Switzerland uses the Internet for information purposes about the reality and the political conflict in the Basque Country? First, it is heavily criminalized, then it gets seriously attacked by cyberterroristic actions, and at last, it is obliged to close it's informative offer on his Web-site. And all this is staged and applauded by nearly all of the so called "democratic" media of the Spanish State. This happened to us in February of this year. But we didn't give up and we are now returning to the Net: The new Web-site will be presented at this press conference. Make yourself your own opinion about this story, about this very first case in of a targeted political censorship on the Internet, with unforeseeable consequences for the freedom and future of this electronic communication medium. You will be able to look up the original Web-pages of our electronic magazine "Euskadi Information" under the following provisionally address: http://www.knooppunt.be/euskadi/welcome.html This address is only valid till 10th April; the final address of the new Web-Site will be presented at the Press Conference. You can also contact us for any question or supplementary information by e-mail at •••@••.••• or by sending us a fax to (02) 646 30 12 in Brussel. With our best regards, Euskadi Koordination Zurich, Switzerland -------------------------------------------------------------- Appendix: please spread this information without modification and send back supporting mails or faxes. -------------------------------------------------------------- *** Criminalization and Terror Actions on the Internet =3D Political Censorship *** The Web-Site "Euskadi Information", which offered news and background information about the Basque Country since October 1995, has been closed because of the impact of a consciously organized "terror" action. On January the 19th began a defamotary and criminalization campaign by nearly all spanish media of the information published through the Internet by the Euskadi Koordination in Zurich (Switzerland). The 15th February a big and intensive e-mail-"bombing" was started by different spanish Universities and almost achieved to saturate and crash our Internet provider, the Internet Access AG in Zurich. As a result of this trouble, our information pages and e-mail address were removed from the Internet by our provider, and the antidemocratic spanish attackers could congratulate themselves on the - provisonal - closure of our site. "Euskadi Information" - An alternative information project goes online The Euskadi Koordination is an association that was founded 1984 in Zurich (Switzerland) and registered according to Swiss law. The main objective is to spread alternative information about the Basque Country (Euskadi), and specially about the political conflict between Euskadi and the Spanish State. From 1986 to 1992 the news, background information and discussions were published in german in the bimonthly magazine "Euskadi Information". The edition of 1000 units was sent to hundreds of subscribers and dozens of libraries in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Other groups in Europe edited similar magazines in french and spanish, occasionally also in english and italian. After nearly two and a half years of a break, the reorganized Euskadi Koordination decided to continue with the information project, choosing now not the printed form, but the electronic publication on the Internet. In October 1995 we started a first test phase of the new Euskadi Information online: our Web pages were published by the provider Internet Access AG in Zurich under the address http://www.access.ch/euskadi/. In December 1995 we registered our Web-Pages on the popular search engines like Yahoo, Lycos etc. Our offer of information in five languages (german, english, basque, spanish and french) was expanded more and more and the number of people that visited our site increased from week to week: by the end of January 1996 we had already about 1500 unique accesses per week, (more than 20'000 counting all accessed pages), and lots of interesting - mostly positive - e-mail correspondence. It was clear: our project covered a real need for alternative information about the situation in the Basque Country. The information offered on our Web-site - while being still incomplete - covered all relevant aspects of life in the Basque Country: from politics to language and culture to sports and even cooking, trying to set up a kind of news magazine as well as a free accessible archive. This information was gathered from basque newspapers ("egin") and magazines ("herria eginez") as well as from several political and social organizations close to the independentist left, and specially from the (legal) party Herri Batasuna among others. All information was perfectly legally available in the Spanish State and there was - of course - no call to violence or anything similar. In face of the totally uniform and misinformed information about Euskadi that is spread by nearly all the media in the Spanish State and outside, we found it very necessary to show the true basque reality and to present the analysis and the political project of the basque liberation movement and their proposition for a peaceful solution of the conflict through dialogue and negotiation. The criminalization campaign and the computer attack On February the 19th the conservative newspaper "El Correo espa=F1ol" from Bilbao published an article about our Web-Site and a comment by J.M. Calleja with the provocative title "InternETA". In both articles, they accused Euskadi Information of publishing a distorted view of the Basque Country and to belong to the environment of the basque armed organization ETA. The next day nearly all newspapers in the Spanish State as well as several radio and TV-stations brought the same "news", in many cases even copying every word exactly from the "El Correo espa=F1ol". The ultraconservative and law-and-order newspaper "ABC" from Madrid tried to criminalize us claiming that "the ETA environment could use Internet for encrypted communications", and that the police was investigating our activities. In the following weeks, the campaign against us, far from calming down, increased significantly. All the media published longer articles with photographies of our Web pages, trying to interprete our information as "apology in support of terrorism" (which may lead to a condamnation from six to twelwe years of prison in this 'democratic' Spanish State). "ABC" and some magazines introduced their articles with titles like "The police suspects ETA to order attentates through Internet"; they even published the full name of one of the members of the Euskadi Koordination in Zurich, and accused us of being part of the international terroristic scene because of our Web-Links to other Web pages like the irish Sinn Fein or the mexican Zapatistas, and because we encouraged the civil rights campaign for the use of PGP= encryption. At this point we got also the first injuring and threatening e-mails from people from the Spanish State, mostly anonymous or with faked addresses. Some messages were clearly dangerous, announcing attentates against basque independentist politicians by paramilitary groups, in the tradition of the dirty war (GAL-affair etc.) that the Spanish State uses against the Basque Liberation Movement. A few days after a new attentate of ETA in Madrid, which we even didn't mention on our pages, some hackers intruded the system of our Internet provider the 13th February and achieved to change some background and other graphics of our Web pages with other ones ridiculizing us. This sabotage was published the next day in all spanish media, with proud comments like "The democarcy 'virus'" or "antiterroristic hackers fighting back the indesireables on Internet". It is still unclear how the hackers got access to the Web pages, and, as our provider told us later, it only seems to be that it wasn't neither through mail nor through FTP. In these days, as we were told later, first ideas and announcements about the possiblity of bombing us with e-mail were openly discussed in the spanish newsgroups "soc.culture.spain" and "es.talk.politica". In the morning of Thursday the 15th February finally, a big e-mail flooding was started from several spanish universities, mainly from the University of Valladolid and the "Universidad Autonoma de Madrid". It was directed against our e-mail address and against the one of the system administrator of our provider, the Internet Access AG. During two days, and with a maximum frequency of up to 80 e-mail per minute, huge lots of injuring messages and trash e-mail were sent by several hundred people mainly from the Spanish State, but partially also from the US; a significant part of these mails was generated using e-mail robots that fired unceasingly. Even more, there were press informations about spanish and US security agencies being involved and collaborating in this case, as well as founded rumours about an intervention of spanish representatives before swiss authorities. The Web-site "Euskadi Information" finally closed - but not forever Under the pressure of this heavy attack, our provider definitevely closed our Web-site the same day, even if he had to admitt that the contents of our pages were perfectly legal from the point of view of Swiss law, and that he deeply regretted this attack on the freedom of speech. Spanish press congratuled themselves to this fascistoid actions and to the closure of this "Web-site of terroristic propaganda". With a few exceptions, Swiss press and media relied also on the misinformations spread by spanish press agencies, making it impossible for us to find soon an alternative Internet provider who would face the risk of a possible new attack of the antidemocratic spanish cyberterrorists. Meanwhile there have been other such actions, like the bombing of the basque mailing list Basque-L with bogus suscriptions, and the discussion in the above cited spanish newsgroups about preventing the basque newspaper "egin" from going online. At this moment we are working towards a solution for a more secure "Euskadi Information", and hope to be newly present on the Internet in a few weeks. But besides our own efforts we need at least as much the solidarity and support of all people and organizations, Internet-users or not, that are aware of the great importance that this precedent of political censorship can be for all who believe in and fight for a free and tolerant, for a democratic and progressive Internet. 20/03/96 Euskadi Koordination Zurich, Switzerland ----------------------------- Euskadi Koordination Postfach 7323 8023 Zurich Switzerland e-mail: •••@••.••• Fax ++ 32 2 - 646 30 12 ----------------------------- ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Andrew Oram - •••@••.••• - Moderator: CYBER-RIGHTS (CPSR) Cyber-Rights: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ ftp://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/Library/ CyberJournal: (WWW or FTP) --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
