<nettime> b92 letter to dr. Klaus Eckhart Maass

[Drazen Pantic <drazen@opennet.org>]

    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 reinstated 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

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