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Online seit:	Thu Sep 12 17:30:48 1996

Written inquiries were made by Elly Plooij (Europarliament-VVD) at the
European Commission.


1) Is the Commission aware that several German Internet providers, united
in the Internet Content Task Force (ICTF), forbids its clients to access
the web pages of the Dutch provider XS4ALL?

The German providers applied this censorship on the request of the German
justice department, because XS4ALL harbors one page on which a sample of
the forbidden magazine Radikal is present.

2) Is the Commission aware that this method of censorship by the ICTF has
no effect whatsoever, since the 'forbidden' information , out of protest,
has already been copied to 20 different websites, in different countries.

3) Is it the Commission's opinion that Internet Providers are responsible and
thus criminally liable for any material that is being transfered on Internet?

4) Is it the Commission's opinion that the censorship that the German Internet
providers applied, on request of the German justice department purports 
a violation of the freedom of speech?

5) Is the blocking of German subscribers of the access to a Dutch provider,
and therefore to the services of the Dutch industry, a violation of the
free-trade agreements in the European internal market? If so, what does the
Commission plan to do about this?

6) Does the Commission believe that laws concerning the transfer of material
through the Internet are necessary, seeing that censorship on the Internet
by one (1) member state has extra-territorial consequences within the
European Union?