Green Spider Foundation
Boom! Everything goes black. Hungary goes black.
Do you remember ‘Blackout 4 Hungary’? A little more than a year ago, Hungarian net activists initiated a “movement calling on all Hungarians to turn their websites black starting with 5 January 2011,” as a protest against internet censorship. That was the immediate response to a media law introduced by the Viktor Orbán’s government, which took effect in January 2011.
Without going into the details, which can be found here – http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.1/media-law-hungary-blocks-internet – since Hungary introduced the controversial law, it has had to retreat. People pressure, but also pressure from sides of the European Commission have pushed Orban & Co. into retreat. He has backed down on several points of his media law while the general framework of the regulation remains.
Such new laws have successfully been opposed from the inside and outside of Hungary. Hungarians now have a new reason to rejoice. An Internet Rights Charter is now online: http://www.apc.org/en/system/files/APC_charter_HU_1.pdf Originally designed by APC in 2006, this charter was validated by more than 30 internet rights groups throughout the world, including Green Spider Foundation, a Budapest-based group. The charter can be used to advocate for better protection of human rights on the internet and thereby strengthen Hungary’s already lively internet and media activist scene.
A special thanks goes out to kiberpunk Maxigas for making this Hungarian version of the APC Internet Rights Charter possible.