Διαμαρτυρία 100: SEEcult.org (Σερβία)

6 Νοεμβρίου 2006, 02:54
Από: Vesna Milosavljevic
Subject: Cultureguide.gr portal shut down by Greek Government!

Hi all,
Regarding good news from Elias Vergitsis, I think that we could, beside our individually protests, make also a joint one, as an informal network of culture portals, because it always has stronger impact. It could be short request for Greek Ministry of culture to continue funding of cultureguide.gr and it could be sent to Greek embassies in our countries too as our joint statement.
Even it seems to me that the case of our Greek colleagues maybe is rather a part of wider political problem than just culture policy issue, I think that every kind of pressure could be helpful, especially because the Greek authorities were criticized on Internet policy and controversy surrounding freedom of speech online even at UN conference in Athens last week (the Internet Governance Forum).
And I think that we should promote Culture.mondo in the field of freedom of speech on Internet too, as it’s core of culture both internationally and nationally and especially because the future of www is pretty uncertain (see coverages on IGF in Athens). Who knows what could happen with independent portals world wide when the state established and sponsored as cultureguide.gr has such difficulties?
I am also a Reporters Without Borders’s (RSF) correspondent and know, from my experience with so many pressure on media cases in Serbia and Montenegro during ‘90s that international and/or joint protests/pressure could have much more impact than internal or just individual.
So, I would like to suggest you also to urge people to take a part in a 24-hour online demonstration to protest Internet censorship world wide. It will be held on RSF web site between 11 a.m. Central European Time on Nov. 7 to 11. a.m. on Nov. 8. RSF will also lunch its blog platform on Internet censorship and maybe we could open on it joint Culture.mondo’s post for cases like shut-down of cultureguide.gr etc.
Best regards, Vesna Milosavljevic
SEEcult.org