Voluntary mirror sites set up for the beleaguered Zündelsite by Free Speech advocates

Note: An effort to censor the website of Ernst Zündel was initiated by those who would prefer that free-thought and free-speech would become forgotten artifacts of the past. Courageous individuals have thwarted the censorship by mirroring Zündelsite from their own platforms. Even though these individuals do not agree with Zündel's ideas, they believe that he should have the right to present them. Following is the news release sent out by Ernst Zündel. (RW)

January 30, 1996

At least four mirror sites have sprung up to shelter a controversial Internet web site under siege by the Simon Wiesenthal center. Two of these “web site shelters” are at Stanford University and Carnegie Mellon University, respectively. These electronic shelters have been set up by individuals who do not agree with Zündel's views but feel that Freedom of Speech is at stake for all and who wish to take a strong stand on the side of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which guarantees Freedom of Speech.

“If the German Government forces Deutsche Telekom to block access to web servers at Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and Stanford University,” says Declan McCullagh of Carnegie Mellon University, “it will be slicing off communications with three of the most respected universities in the United States.”

McCullagh, (e-mail: [email protected]) who has helped spearhead the drive for Freedom of Speech, adds: “I'll remove the files and provide a pointer to the Zündelsite when and if the attacks and censorship attempts stop.” “Either (the Carnegie Mellon) AFS tree or mine can be accessed by thousands of sites around the world, including over a dozen sites in Germany, even if all World Wide Web traffic is cut off,” says Rich Graves of Stanford University, the second individual who offered a mirror site. In an e-mail letter to the Zündelsite, Graves (E-mail: [email protected]) goes on to say: “There are enough mirrors both to ensure that nothing Deutsche Telekom and the German government could possibly do can stop the public availability of your files, and to demonstrate to all that there is no global conspiracy to suppress your views.”

In a previous communique, Graves wrote to Zündel: “I've extended the same offer to contacts in Sendero Luminoso and the Communist Party. I'd like to assemble a virtual library of “unpopular” views, not to help the censors find them (though you should of course expect that to happen), but to foster and encourage an open exchange of views. I do not necessarily find anything compelling or extraordinary about your particular case, except that this is the first time that a “Major Western Democracy” has cut off network routes for political reasons (of course China, Singapore, Cuba, etc. have been doing the same thing for decades). I do not wish to become embroiled in the revisionism debate, but I abhor censorship in any form.”

The Zündelsite can now be reached at [now defunct, ed.]:

• http: //www. sc.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views
• http ://www .contrib.andrew.cmu./edu/~declan/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/
• http: //www .web.mit.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/declan/www/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views
• http: //www. leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/Not_By_Me_Not_My_Views/pr.004.compuser.html

Says Zündel, a Toronto publisher and producer:

“We have reached the Age of Wars in Cyberspace. Citizens world-wide are beginning to realize they need to offer shelter to persecuted and suppressed ideas. One of my readers has commented that, in the wake of the world-wide media storm triggered by content placed on the Zündelsite that challenges the harmful Holocaust Myth, now available for the first time completely free of charge to a world-wide readership, he felt '… the planet lurch a little.'”

For further information, please contact:

http://www.zundelsite.org