Saturday, June 03, 2006
Nazi Violence
The global Indymedia site is hosting this disturbing article.
Quite a wake up call to those who believe hate speech isn't dangerous. At least you would think so.
In January, I commented on one Indymedia moderator who believed that antisemitic articles of zero newsworthiness which were untrue and offensive, still had their place on the Sydney Indymedia newswire in the name of "free speech".
She defended her position thus:
I'm plenty sure they'll be thanked for their stand by those who get stabbed.
The comments on the Indymedia page about the stabbing are calling for Redwatch to be shut down:
Were Redwatch to be shut down, it wouldn't matter. Similar material can be found on Indymedia daily, although some skinheads might find some of the other politics off-putting.
I have said before, Indymedia needs to take a good hard look at itself.
A few days ago, at 6pm on the evening of the 16th of May, at the corner of Tamka and Dobrej streets in Warsaw, an antifascist activist was attacked by two nazis, with clear intentions to kill him. They had been following him, and suddenly, one of them stepped in front on him and sprayed him with pepper gas. Then the other one stabbed him in his back with a 30cm long knife. Maciek fell on the ground and was kicked by the nazis for a while, with them shouting "We'll kill you, you leftist motherfucker!".Not pretty. However, the apparent cause of it is interesting:
Maciek was taken to the hospital and underwent serious life-saving surgery (when he got to the hospital the doctors said that his condition was "critical"), and is now recovering.
He says that he is sure that the attack was due to the recent appearance of his personal data on a nazi site called "redwatch" (www.redwatch.info) which publishes names, addresses, photos and other personal data of human rights activists in order to encourage violent attacks against them. Redwatch is a web-site that has existed for several months now and it promotes the idea of "killing the enemies of the race" and the organization behind this is a very radical neofascist "Blood and Honor".In other words, inflammatory material on websites can and does lead to actual violence.
Quite a wake up call to those who believe hate speech isn't dangerous. At least you would think so.
In January, I commented on one Indymedia moderator who believed that antisemitic articles of zero newsworthiness which were untrue and offensive, still had their place on the Sydney Indymedia newswire in the name of "free speech".
She defended her position thus:
"There are crazy and deluded people with all sorts of politics and conspiracy theories, not just the left. Indymedia is a space where these people can bounce their ideas off the public."Numerous Indymedia websites continue to host the most appallingly Nazi-like material and it seems some are quite happy about these "politics and conspiracy theories" being "bounced" around amidst hate speech, incitement and vilification.
I'm plenty sure they'll be thanked for their stand by those who get stabbed.
The comments on the Indymedia page about the stabbing are calling for Redwatch to be shut down:
Tell DreamHost to stop hosting redwatch.info by emailing them at http://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgiThe hypocrisy of such a comment appearing on Indymedia is quite breathtaking.
...
Demand that DreamHost cease hosting for redwatch.info immediately. Enabling nazi violence is far beyond any notion of free speech in DreamHost's non-censorship policy.
Were Redwatch to be shut down, it wouldn't matter. Similar material can be found on Indymedia daily, although some skinheads might find some of the other politics off-putting.
I have said before, Indymedia needs to take a good hard look at itself.
