From: Mázsa Péter [...] Date: 2010/12/21 Subject: Freedom of speech in Hungary as of 21st December 2010 To: [email protected]
Dear Mr. Hu Jintao, We are writing this letter to you not to address you in your role as the Chinese Premiere, but to address you as if one private individual were speaking to another. We would like to purchase your website, which can be found at the following address http://blog.hu.com . Please allow us to explain this request. You have no doubt heard that the government of the United States has changed its stance on the freedom of the web since the well-known information network, http://wikileaks.org, helped people discover new facts and call for more accountability. The US government’s previous stance, which was enumerated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a landmark speech about internet freedom on 21 January 2010, sounded something like this: “Even in authoritarian countries, information networks are helping people discover new facts and making governments more accountable.” http://www.cfr.org/publication/21253/clintons_speech_on_internet_freedom_january_2010.html “Given what we now know, that Clinton speech reads like a satirical masterpiece.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/dec/06/western-democracies-must-live-with-leaks However, you may be unaware what has been happening to the freedom of speech in the European Union over the past year or so. The official stances of both the People’s Republic of China and the EU are very similar: - “Article 35. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” Constitution http://www.gov.cn/english/2005-08/05/content_20813.htm - “Article 11. 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. 2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.” Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union http://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf However, the void between this declaration and the reality of the situation is huge. As we are requesting your assistance, please allow us to direct your attention to the contraventions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as oppossed to the normal discussions of contraventions of human rights in China. From the beginnning of next year Hungary will hold the EU’s rotating presidency http://www.eu2011.hu . So far, the next holder of the EU’s rotating presidency has: - implicitly expressed support for the pro-Nazi Hungarian government of 1944 through the Declaration of National Cooperation, signed on 29th May 2010 (cf. http://amexrap.org/fal/kedves-tibor in Hungarian) - levied a 98% tax on certain incomes as of 16th November 2010, backdatable six years. This has in effect suspended the rule of law in the country http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSBUD00558120101108 - radically limited the scope of constitutional supervision in the country, effectively suspending what was a constitutional democratic republic: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ac8db2a-f1af-11df-bb5a-00144feab49a.html - following this, on 13th December 2010, by referring to common national goals, the government passed a law that legalized the “nationalization” or state appropriation of the private pension savings of one third of the Hungarian population http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/428811-private-pension-funds-seized On this day, 21st December 2010 the incumbent president of the EU has approved a new media law which: - provides the National Media and Communications Authority’s Media Council with the authority to impose fines on private newspapers, websites, broadcasters, and other content providers that have violated press rules on “balanced” coverage as well as immoral reporting (such as content involving sex, violence, and alcohol). Fines could be as much as $950,000 for radio and television stations, $120,000 for daily newspapers and “internet media news products” (e.g. blogs). Internet media news products could also be suspended or shut down. - “Of particular concern is the wording of the supposed ‘violations which is very is broad, creating an environment conducive to significant misuse” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=12 92 The EU and its Member States are shamefully tolerating this violation of the rule of law and freedom of expression as perpetrated by the holder of the 2011 rotating presidency. This is why we are writing to you. The address http://blog.hu is the site of a popular blog service in Hungary. We would like to reproduce the contents of this service at the address http://blog.hu.com , which is currently in your possession. Our wish is to make it possible to publish information at the aforementioned address anonymously, so that Hungarians may defy a repressive media law and be free to exercise their right to the freedom of expression without fear of reprisal. If, however, you wish to maintain your ownership rights for http://blog.hu.com we would be more than grateful if you could provide us with a website that would allow us to publish freely and anonymously. In drawing our letter to a close we would like to wish you and all the citizens of the Chinese State a Happy New Year by citing the words of Confucius: 子曰：「學而時習之，不亦說乎？有朋自遠方來，不亦 樂乎？人不知而不慍，不亦君子乎？」 “To study and to practice, it is is a joy, isn’t it? When friends come from afar, it is a pleasure, isn’t it? If one remains unknown and isn’t hurt, isn’t one an honorable man?” http://www.chinapage.com/tech/confucius.html Greetings: Philip Barker Peter Mazsa # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]
