Press release

Indymedia NL refuses to remove links to Radikal

site despite being summoned to do so by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail)

On Tuesday the 23rd of April the newsmedium

Indymedia NL has received a letter from a lawfirm representing Deutsche Bahn AG that demands the

immediate removal of an Internet page. The page

under attack contains some links to mirrors of the -long defunct- German periodical Radikal. Two articles embedded in those mirrors have been the subject of a lawsuit last week.

DB objects to these articles because they contain

instructions on how to obstruct the heavily critized German nuclear transports. By way of a judicial procedure, Internet provider XS4ALL has been ordered to remove these pages from the homepage of one of its

subscribers. After this removal, many mirrors have sprung up all over the world. The letter from DB states that if the Indymedia page containing links to these mirrors is not removed immediately, they will sue.

Indymedia NL adamantly refuses to comply with DB's demand to remove the links for the following three reasons:

Firstly the links in question do not directly lead to the disputed articles, but to mirrors in which the articles

are contained. The articles therefore are at least three "clicks" away (from Indymedia to the mirror and from the mirror to the content page of the Radikal editions and from there to the articles). Complying with the request from DB would mean jeopardizing the fundaments of the Internet, since linking is the very essence of this medium.

Secondly, Indymedia NL is part of a worldwide independent news network, entirely produced by volunteers. Using the open publishing system,

everyone can freely publish his or her news in

the form of text, audio, video or photos. Principally Indymedia NL does not want to censor or prevent people from placing links to news sources. We believe that everybody has the right to place links, notwithstanding the contentavailable through these links.

Thirdly, Indymedia NL thinks that conforming to the demand would jeopardize the national and international freedom of the press, which is the basis of every democratic system. The possibility for censorship of hyperlinks in this way would have severe negative

consequences for relevant provision of information in all layers of society (media, education, etc). Indymedia NL therefore calls for support in this very fundamental issue. Indymedia stresses that the issue is about references to freely available pages which are outside of Indymedia's responsibility.

Updates on this case will be available on http://www.indymedia.nl

The disputed webpage is at

http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/04/3281.shtml

Donations should be made payable to the Dutch bank account 56.03.59.349 on behalf of Stichting SBIP, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Any form of legal expertise is also very welcome.

More information: info@indymedia.nl