Dutch, French and European Internet freedom hypocrisy

Liu Xiaobo: The politically correct human rights hero.

We have in the Western world human rights hypocrisy and politically correct human rights heroes. First of all, various human rights defenders, especially in Burma and China, are celebrated and receive advocacy, while those fighting for human rights and Internet freedom in the United States and the Netherlands are even demonized, criminalized and removed from the Internet.The human rights hypocrisy with regard to Internet freedom comes with the phony and politically correct advocacy for only those “human rights heroes” that oppose America’s enemies. This is the case with France and the Netherlands, and this is very obvious in the Wikileaks war, where 2 teens have been arrested for harmlessly protesting the removal of Wikileaks ability to get donations!  The reality is that both Julian Assange and Liu Xiaobo are being persecuted by big global powers for their Internet activism. Assange is a politically incorrect Net user and made the US angry, while Xiaobo is for than advancement of the Western phony “Internet freedom” agenda for political purposes.  

But – both the Dutch and French advocate “Internet code of conduct” for governments?!” Over the past year, both France and the Netherlands have been advocating for Internet freedom and free expression over the Internet. On May 26, 2010, the Dutch government put out a statement that their government and the French government wanted a “code of conduct” that would be aimed at governments and be in the positive for Internet users’ freedom of expression. This international code of conduct was also in regard to the flow of Internet traffic. This code has to do with software used to filter Internet access (also see Dutch Mission to the UN ). The then Dutch Foreign minster, Maxime Verhagen, said in the statement:

Freedom of expression applies everywhere, including the internet. But in many countries people are persecuted for expressing their opinion online. We want concrete measures against internet censorship. 

Well, the Dutch “Internet freedom” hypocrisy reared its head in September, when Dutch bloggers, academic and journalists were alarmed by proposed legislation that would have allowed judges and prosecutors to have websites removed, without regard for the seriousness of such an action (or what a bunch of hypocritical fools the Dutch government looked like).Yes – so-called “advocacy of Internet freedom” by the Dutch government is only a rock to throw at American enemies.

Now – we have Wikileaks and both the French and Dutch governments have REALLY shown their hypocrisy. The actions of especially the French and US governments should make us quite concerned for Internet freedom in the Western world. The French government minster, Éric Besson, had “declared war” on Wikileaks and used his governmental position to try and get Wikileaks off of French servers. Besson stated that the servers’ hosting of Wikileaks was “not acceptable” tried to get a court to go along with a ban of French servers. The court refused to force the service provider to remove Wikileaks. OVH, the service provider, stated that it was not for or against the Wikileaks site, but that it wanted to “fulfill its contract as that is their job.” Good for the great customer service of OVH – and not bending to government pressure.The Wikileaks site was chased onto the French servers after being closed from Amazon. While Amazon denies governmental pressure (yea – right – you gave into government pressure Amazon!) it is known that the US government placed pressure on PayPal and Twitter to close Wikileaks sites. There have been reports that filters were used to filter “Wikileaks” on Twitter.

I’d like to donate to Wikileaks !!! PayPal, Visa, Mastercard – still allow donations for the KKK and other violent racist groups – contrary to “terms of service.” Also – it is known that Geert Wilders’ so-called “legal defense” uses PayPal – even as Wilders is a known Islamiphobic hate monger that uses the disprovable “Islamisation” myth and is a crackpot fraud who’d like to bring an anti-Muslim dictatorship to the Netherlands. But- Assange and his followers are “dangerous and threatening?!”We should all be concerned, according to Electronic Frontier Foundation, about creeping censorship, and be ready to stand up to it. The Internet services were pulled after the phone calls from Congressmen, especially Joe Lieberman.

According to Amazon, WikiLeaks violated the site’s terms of service, resulting in Amazon pulling the plug on hosting services. However, news sources have also reported that Amazon cut off WikiLeaks after being questioned by members of the staff of Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman. While it’s impossible to know whether or not Amazon’s decision was directly caused by the call from the senator’s office, we do know that Lieberman has proposed “anti-WikiLeaks legislation” and that he has a history of pushing for online censorship in the name of “security.” 

When the US web services are pulled because of a phone call from a Congressman, or other US governmental official, we have have a whole new ballgame. It is different for a web service provider like Twitter to yank services and delete accounts under specific guidelines (and give an explanation), but when this is done in response to government commands. Yet – service providers can claim “violations of terms of service” any time they want, actually.  The removal of services by big name companies in the fashion seen by this observer is consistent with the hidden hand of the US government at work.

QUESTION: Why is Internet censorship by the US government treated differently from Internet censorship by the Chinese and Iranian governments?

Éric Besson’s “defending an ally” against citizens’ actions is supposedly “free and democratic Western nations?” The Ayatollahs of Iran need to just use the telephone the next time they which to remove a renegade blogger. The same tactic used by Senator Lieberman should be true for the authorities in China:  Why waste your time – just call and put pressure of the ISP providing the service.  A few threats from the hidden hand, as with the US government, should also go a long way.This hypocrisy will should your blood boil – as Internet freedom for American and Western critics like ME is now under threat. Do I now have to fear that a Congressman or some US government official can call Yahoo or WordPress and have my blogs and websites deleted?Éric Besson refereed to his hypocritical attempts to have Wikileaks censored from French servers as “defending an ally.”  This statement is an absolute demonstration that niceties like a “promote Internet freedom” are at the whims of selfish and obsessive American interests in the phony “war on terror,” much like “Sweden as a bastion of press freedom.”  If this is “defending an ally” against fellow citizens of democratic states, what then is the same governmental behavior against citizens called in China? Iran?

Now – was not the Warsaw Pact’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 also “defending and ally?” Let’s find out who these teens arrested in the Netherlands are – as we should regard them as heroes for fighting for our Internet freedom. Give them the Defenders’ Tulip! The Sakharov Prize! They are now being persecuted by the Dutch governemnt for defending Internet freedom!  These teens arrested by Dutch “compucops” are actually the real heroes – like those in China and Iran fighting for Internet freedom. Likewise, Assange, the subject of US persecution, could be criminalized yet – and European governments like the Dutch and French would willingly participate. This is not the case with Chinese blogger Liu Xiaobo, who is the Western world’s human rights hero du jour, a real politically correct human rights hero.The Dutch need to do the correct and honorable thing – and drop all charges against the teens … as the next peep out of the Dutch government on some nice “code of conduct for Internet freedom” will look a bit — well hypocritical.Now – let’s remember this – Wikileaks and Western hypocrisy on Internet freedom - all of us – the next time the Dutch and French governments propose “a code of conduct for combating Internet censorship.”