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Announcement :: Arts |
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YellowTimes.org Just Shut Down!! |
Current rating: 0 |
by Firas Al-Atraqchi
(No verified email address) |
10 Feb 2003
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The well known alternative news publication YellowTimes.org was just shut down by its hosting comapny! It recently published an article by an Iraqi nuclear scientist! |
Stifling the Voice of Reason
By Firas Al-Atraqchi
The campaign to stifle dissent and censor any questioning of current U.S. policies vis a vis the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular, has reached new levels.
Websites which host alternative views, and/or views that contradict U.S. foreign policy are no longer tolerated on the Internet and are systematically coming under hacker attack and political pressures to "relocate."
YellowTimes.org (www.yellowtimes.org) has for the past six months withstood intense hacker attacks as it publishes views that directly question, criticize, and berate the U.S. official line regarding the impending invasion of Iraq.
"In addition to e-mail spoof attacks, I think they are attempting to overload our servers through denial of service attacks, forcing our website to go offline. Similar incidents happened last time we released an article from Imad Khadduri," says Erich Marquardt, YellowTimes.org publisher.
Imad Khadduri, an Iraqi former nuclear scientist who was instrumental in Iraq's nuclear weapons program in the 1980s and early 1990s, has charged that recent allegations concerning the competence and progress of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program are baseless and untrue. In an article published on YellowTimes.org before it was taken off-line by its hosting company, Khadduri painted a dismal picture of Iraq's scientific community with many out of jobs and scrounging for work after the Gulf War and subsequent allied bombing reduced any nuclear hopes to rubble.
Khadduri has also charged Khidhir Hamza, a former Iraqi scientist with whom Khadduri worked, with fabricating and exaggerating his importance in Iraq's nuclear program outlined in Hamza's book "Saddam's Bombmaker."
While several YellowTimes.org writers have been lauded for bringing previously unpublished news to its readers and informing the public of news that has been virtually "blacked out" from mainstream North American media (CNN, New York Times, etc.), a marginal number of readers have found the website to be "sick and diseased," and "unpatriotic."
Those who charge that intellectual debate is unpatriotic forget the words of John Adams, one of the forefathers of the U.S. Constitution:
"The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have â ¦ a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers."
Or perhaps they forget Thomas Jefferson: "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."
Are more websites about to be "shut down"?
For its part, YellowTimes.org is committed to continuing its ethos in providing its hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors with alternative news and views, and is not taking the recent shutdown lightly. "This setback is not going to stop us from speaking out against leaders and governments who commit gross injustices against humankind," said Marquardt.
"Believe me, YellowTimes.org will be back."
Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: firas6544 (at) rogers.com
YellowTimes.org can be contacted at: YellowTimes (at) hotmail.com
www.yellowtimes.org
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Plenty Of Opposition And Dissent Still On The Internet |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
10 Feb 2003
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Given that no proof of any government involvement has been presented, despite a number of paranoid postings spammed to the global IMC Newswire about this, is it possible that someone just forgot to pay the bill at the ISP?
YellowTimes is hardly the only website that offers dissenting views on the Internet, which is another rather dubious claim being made in these postings. |
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Re: YellowTimes.org Just Shut Down!! |
by Bill
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Feb 2003
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I can't believe they took Yellow Times down. There has been an organized campaign against these guys for the last year. They are constantly under hacker attack.
This is the best damn Internet site for alternative news on the Internet. How dare they. |
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Depends On Your Definition Of "Alternative" |
by *
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Feb 2003
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No one has made a case for this website being "shutdown" by the authorities. From what I've heard, it seems to be more of a dispute with their ISP than anything. It should not have been a problem to get another ISP -- in fact it appears they made no attempt to find an alternative, because it draws a lot more attention to make the unsupported claim to have been "shutdown."
Plus, there seem to be some rather disreputable skeletons in the YellowTimes closet. It seems that the main man there is very cozy with and sympathetic to certain European neo-Nazis. See: http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=235851&group=webcast |
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Re: YellowTimes.org Just Shut Down!! |
by Johnny Walker
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Feb 2003
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You guys are something else. Trying to muckrake. Look at what Mark from IndyMedia.org said at the San Fran IndyMedia:
This is utter propaganda.
Erich Marquardt is marquardt (at) yellowtimes.org
and YellowTimes.org is based in the United States, not Austria, where this Erich Wild character has an email address. God only knows who the other Erichs are.
There is no relation between erich.wild (at) sbg.ac.at and YellowTimes.org as you can see via a google search -- http://groups.google.com/groups?q=erich.wild%40sbg.ac.at+yellowtimes
This is Erich Wild: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=erich.wild%40sbg.ac.at
This is Erich Marquardt: http://www.google.com/search?q=marquardt%40yellowtimes.org
Very different people.
add your comments
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Re: YellowTimes.org Just Shut Down!! |
by Johnny Walker
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
11 Feb 2003
Modified: 06:58:15 PM |
You guys are something else. Trying to muckrake. Look at what Mark from IndyMedia.org said at the San Fran IndyMedia:
This is utter propaganda.
Erich Marquardt is marquardt (at) yellowtimes.org
and YellowTimes.org is based in the United States, not Austria, where this Erich Wild character has an email address. God only knows who the other Erichs are.
There is no relation between erich.wild (at) sbg.ac.at and YellowTimes.org as you can see via a google search -- http://groups.google.com/groups?q=erich.wild%40sbg.ac.at+yellowtimes
This is Erich Wild: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=erich.wild%40sbg.ac.at
This is Erich Marquardt: http://www.google.com/search?q=marquardt%40yellowtimes.org
Very different people.
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