On Friday November 12th at about 21.00h, the DNS-provider of Indymedia Netherlands received a writ of execution from the Haaglanden Police, demanding information on the person that posted a threat to politician Geert Wilders on the website of Indymedia.nl. The provider has to submit this information within 48 hours, that is by Sunday at 21.00h. Thus preventing the DNS-provider from seeking legal advice.
Indymedia.nl doesn't keep any logs, there is no obligation for that under the telecommunication law and considering journalism ethics, providing information about sources is at least dubious. The editorial team refused to comply with a menacing letter by the Haaglanden Police to ?Friends of Indymedia? (see press release). Now the police is trying to get the non-registered and so unavailable data from the DNS-provider. The DNS-provider has nothing to do with the content of the indymedia.nl website and doesn't have any access to logs or the administration part of the website. The only thing a DNS-provider does is make sure the visitors of Indymedia.nl arrive on the website when they type http://indymedia.nl in the toolbar of their webbrouwser. The writ of execution was delivered to the DNS-provider on a Friday night, long after all offices closed. The provider is summoned to provide the information within 48 hours. These 48 hours will be expired 12 hours before offices open again on Monday morning. This way it has been made impossible for him to seek legal advice from a lawyer or an organisation specialised in Internet law like Bits of Freedom.
The writ of execution is also addressed to the girlfriend of the DNS-provider. How she would have access to the data that aren't being kept anywhere, are not managed by her boyfriend and she has never had anything to do with is a complete mystery to the indymedia.nl editorial team. Will the police try and convince our postman to submit non-existing data next time?
This attempt by the police to force indymedia.nl to provide data it doesn't have and doesn't need to keep started after a media hype over a threat towards Geert Wilders posted in the middle of the night by a visitor to the website. The editorial team removed the posting within 45 minutes, but it still got a lot of attention in the media. The poster is still available on Fok.nl, RTL and de Telegraaf.
The Indymedia.nl editorial team is fed up with this police intimidation and hopes they will find something more constructive to do with their time after the sending of this letter
E-Mail: info@indymedia.nl
