XPost: rec.photo.digital, free.it.cracks, alt.pl.nauka.angielskiego   
   XPost: de.soc.recht.wohnen, tw.bbs.alumni.sungshan, tw.bbs.campus.fju   
   XPost: alt.sci.physics.new-theories, alt.music.zevon, mailing.unix.bugtraq   
      
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   -= purpose in publicizing it; censorship in uk.* newsgroups -=   
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   The postings to uk.misc newsgroup generated a very defensive reaction from   
   Usenet readers in the UK. So much so, that they tried strenuously to   
   suppress what was being said, both by breaking the rules of netiquette in   
   their responses on the forum, and directly by action to revoke the account   
   from which the postings were issued.   
      
   Yet the postings were within the normal boundaries of behaviour for   
   uk.misc, and other less partisan spectators did not see justice in the   
   censorship which was effected, as the following excerpt shows;   
      
   :Karen Lofstrom (lofstrom@lava.net) wrote   
   :>It does seem that the frequency and the size of his posts are   
   :>approaching net abuse.  However, IMHO, they aren't quite there yet. If   
   :>his postmaster were to act in this instance, it would raise troubling   
   :>censorship issues.   
      
   The inescapable conclusion of the censorship effected on the uk.*   
   newsgroups is that the British are intent on their wrongdoing remaining   
   concealed, and therefore seek to subvert and suppress freedom of speech,   
   not only in their own country where the media shows xenophobic bias and   
   bile against all perceived enemies within and without, but also in other   
   countries which have their own statutes to guarantee the basic human right   
   of free speech.   
      
   It is absolutely necessary to bring their hate campaign out into the open   
   where it can be placed under scrutiny and the harassers seen for what they   
   are. That is the only way of making it impossible for the security services   
   to carry it out. There is a wider dimension, though. Xenophobia as   
   demonstrated by British people and institutions over the last few years   
   belongs to the same stable as racial hatred. In one case, two youths on a   
   Tube train made that racism explicit by referring to their victim as a   
   "soft toy, not up to British Standards". Doubtless others victimize partly   
   on the basis of race (isn’t it odd that they chose to torment someone who   
   is not ethnically English?) while expressing their abuse in terms of   
   another genetic attribute, namely mental illness. All xenophobia on a   
   genetic basis is wrong, but while racial insults are illegal, abusing the   
   mentally ill is neither against the law nor subject to similar condemnation   
   when it is exposed.   
      
   340   
      
      
   --   
   Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)