initiativ periodika Archiv adressbuch kampagnen suche aktuell

Online seit:	Wed Apr 23 08:28:57 1997

Ontvangst radio B92 gehinderd door blokkade


19 April 1997

Open brief aan dr. Klaus-Eckhart Maass door Adrienne van Heteren en Drazen
Pantic

We assume that you all have been informed about the block on the xs4all
website
by the German Forschungsnetz. German Research Net. The reason for this is
that one of the subscribers of XS4ALL is distributing a magazine Radikal,
which is in
Germany forbidden by law. As a result of this all the users of the XS4ALL
web server cannot be accessed anymore by the users of the provider, German
Research Net. We want to inform you that we send the following letter to the
managing director of this German Research Net
, dr. Klaus-Eckhart Maass.


Dear dr. Klaus Eckhart Maass,

We have been informed by some of our listeners from Germany that they cannot
receive the Real Audio online broadcasts of the independent radiostation B92
from Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia anymore.

As we understood the problem is that the website of our Internet provider in
The Netherlands, XS4All, has been blocked by the Deutsche
Forschungsnetz/German Research Net. As a result of this our Real Audio
Service for Germany cannot be acessed anymore by our regular listeners,
because this Real Audio Service resides within the domain www.xs4all.nl

Radio B92 has become very prominent in providing independent accounts of the
events in Belgrade during the mass demonstrations in Belgrade. While it was
banned
in December 1996 it continued its accounts of the events through its Real
Audio
Service. The connection with the world through Internet proved highly
valuable for the public appeal for democratisation. As a result of the
international critique and pressure, which was organized through a world
wide appeal via XS4ALL, Radio B92's broadcast had to be r
einstated by the government of the ruling socialist party of Mr. Milosevic.
We therefor strongly urge you to reinstate XS4ALL's access to Germany and to
the users via your Forschungsnetz.

We are in the midst of a serious struggle for the freedom of expression. We
cannot understand that one of our most serious and strenuous partners in
this struggle, XS4ALL is being banned from your service for the fact that it
is upholding precisely the same values (freedom of expression and a respect
for the rule of law) which, we assume, you also share.

We share XS4All's approach as to the fact that any legal problems regarding
any
websites on their service has to be considered through a juridical procedure
in
a Dutch court of law. Given the fact that the problematic Radical site is
being
mirrored by many servers all over the world and is therefor accessible
through others than XS4All, we can only conclude that a blockade against
XS4All is discriminatory, against the other users of XS4All and against
XS4All as a provider.

 We hope that you will appreciate the problems this measure has caused us
and that you will reconsider your decision.

With kind regards,

Drs. Adrienne van Heteren - Director of Rex Cultural Centre of B92
Drazen Pantic - Director of the B92 Internet Service