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Website features censored material from around the globe
Copyright © 1998 Nando.net
Copyright © 1998 AFP
* Banned and censored documents: Digital Freedom Network
NEW YORK (May 5, 1998 3:26 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - A U.S.-based
group formally launched a new Web site Tuesday that will allow anyone with a
computer to access banned, censored, or sensitive documents from all over
the world.
The Digital Freedom Network, based in Hackensack, New Jersey, and funded by
IDT Corp., has an archive of some 200 works including banned newspaper
articles, fiction, cartoons, and poetry from 17 countries.
All can be accessed on its Website at www.dfn.org.
"The real views of the (Chinese) people on current affairs are suppressed,
and appeals for democracy are still regarded as hostile acts," Chinese
dissident Bao Ge told a news conference to launch the new site.
The Web site "is a powerful tool in the fight against censorship," executive
director Bobson Wong said in a statement.
"The Internet is the most significant invention in mass communication since
the printing press. It gives people unprecedented reach -- one person with
Internet access can instantly contact millions of people around the world,"
Wong said.
"And the Internet is impossible to control completely. Information can get
through even the toughest government censors and filters."
Authors whose works now appear on the DFN Web site include:
- Bao Ge, a Chinese dissident now living in exile in the United States, who
was arrested several times before his expulsion from China in 1997;
- Salima Ghezali, editor in chief of La Nation, a French-language weekly
newspaper in Algeria whose publication has been repeatedly suspended by the
Algerian government;
- Koigi wa Wamwere, a Kenyan writer and human rights activist, sentenced to
four years' imprisonment in 1993 and freed in 1996 for medical reasons;
- Raul Rivero, head of the independent Cuban press agency Cuba Press and
backer of a 1991 petition urging President Fidel Castro to release prisoners
of conscience. His books are banned in Cuba.
Copyright © 1998 Nando.net