The CRIF in action
|
Published on 16 June 2005

ISPs TO FILTER OUT NEGATIONIST WEBSITE

In an unprecedented decision, a Paris Court stated that French Internet Service Providers (ISP) will have to prevent French web surfers from accessing the main Holocaust denying website AAARGH. Following protracted legal proceedings, several French anti-racist organizations finally got the court to take a decision on this issue. The judge stated that in spite of the difficulty of implementing such a filtering, the ISP should provide a solution. “The technical difficulties invoked by the providers cannot prevent them from acting,” said the Court.



The ten French ISP sued by anti-racist organizations have now ten days to take “appropriate measures” to prevent French web surfers from accessing the AAARGH site.

Marc Knobel, President of the J’Accuse association who led the legal battle against the ISPs, said, ”This decision puts an end to the impotence of Justice. We have been demanding this filtering for years to prevent the access to Holocaust denying sites. Those sites are hosted on servers outside of France.” Marc Knobel is also a CRIF researcher.

A law on confidence in digital economy voted by the French Parliament in 2004 made it possible to sue the French ISP in this issue.

AAARGH was hosted by three different US service providers specialized in supremacist and racist sites. Two of them complied with ADL’s request to stop hosting AAARGH. The third one, theplanet.com refused. (See our former newsletters)

“All the French anti-racist organizations fought in favour of filtering the access to those sites,” said the lawyer of the French Union of Jewish Students who also sued the ISPs. “I hope this decision of the court will set an example and become a model for other courts.

For the time being, only two European countries went into filtering the access to websites, France and Germany.

The lawyers for the ISPs intend to appeal the judgment.

This week most read articles