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German Wikipedia Threatened w/ Injunction
TheEagleCD writes "Wikipedia.de, the German version of the popular Wikipedia Encyclopedia, is currently closed due to a German court order. A detailed account of the current controversy [en.wikipedia.org] is available, the short version is that the family of "Tron" (Boris Floricic) - a German hacker and phreaker - is trying to force Wikipedia.de from removing the family name from his entry." As I write this the site is back up, as is the tron entry that caused the whole mess. However it does appear that the entire domain was briefly shut down over one entry.
the german wikipedia (which is under Jimmy's control) was never down, only the site www.wikipedia.de (under control of a german club), which normally redirected to the former, and is still down now. So, everybody who remembers the "real" wikipedia address can still use wikipedia without any problems.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag econtent?lp=de_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.or g%2Fwiki%2FTron_(Hacker)
Wikipedia is (mostly) hosted in the US. The German court does not have jurisdiction. End of story. They can do whatever they want to the wikipedia.de domain, but de.wikipedia.org as well as the actual content is totally unaffected.
You can download database dumps and you can find some help with importing into a fresh Mediawiki installation. You can try Wikifilter for converting the dump data into HTML.
There's an easier way, you know. Click the language link to switch to the English version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(hacker)
Just about every major German city has numerous sites for WWII, the crimes the Nazis committed against minorities, and the horrors of war. These sites include concentration camps, large memorials, and burned out churches and buildings.
If you were actually stationed in Germany (as opposed to making it all up) and didn't see them, that's just a testament to your own inattention and ignorance.
The parents of Tron calling for a temporal decree at a german court and having his real name deleted from Wikipedia are being silly. Tron is, by definition, "a person of public interest" (german legal term) and any legally optainable information on him may thus be published.
A temporal decree in german law is exactly that: temporal. A decision by court that needs to be followed until the real court rule is out. No judge in his right mind will prohibit an encyclopedia from publishing details about Tron.
This case does emphasise though that writers to wikipedia are bound by german publishing law and are liable for any damage they cause by deliberately publishing lies or such. Just because the server with german content is outside of germany doesn't mean you'll get away with causing public unrest (Volksverhetzung), denial of the Holocaust ('Auschwitz Lüge') or anything else that is illegal in germany. If the indended audience evidently is in germany the courts won't fall for cheap excuses. Which makes perfect sense.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
You've got that completely wrong:
David Irwing is British not Australian
He was arrested here in Austria not in Germany
He was not arrested "immediately detained upon ever setting foot" here
He was not arrested for violating Austrian law in another country but rather for making a public speech to students in Wien.
The Law he was arrested on is not some "Anti-Free Speech Law" but rather they are laws aimed at preventing the reoccurrence of previous atrocities.
The US also has speech that is not protected... this isn't all that different.
Why is it that you American Nationalists always want to distort what is going on in Europe when you obviously don't have a clue?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.