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German newspapers publish
appeal opposing censorship of WikiLeaks
By Stefan Steinberg
22 December 2010
A number of German newspapers, including the national daily
Frankfurter Rundschau, have published a joint appeal rejecting
any censorship or persecution of the WikiLeaks web site by
either governments or commercial interests, or both.
The appeal, published last Thursday, is supported by three
other Berlin-based daily newspapers: Tageszeitung, Berliner
Zeitung and Taggespiegel. Additional signatories are the
widely read news and culture web site, Perlentaucher, the
weekly news and culture paper, Der Freitag, and the European
Center For Constitutional and Human Rights. |
The joint appeal begins by citing the United
Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19,
which proclaims: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion
and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers”.
The German media statement declares that the WikiLeaks web
site, and the Internet as a whole, is a medium that enjoys
precisely the same right to disseminate information as any
other form of journalism. |
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