Blogs

Update on Swiss website blocking order

By EDRi · May 21, 2003

The internet censorship requests issued by the examining magistrate of the
canton of Vaud (see EDRigram number 2 from 12 February) have been rejected
on 30 April by a judge from the court of Lausanne. In December, over 30
providers had received the order, and while most of them installed some
technical blocking-measures, they joined the legal protest.

The verdict however isn’t based on any ethical or constitutional objections
against provider-filtering, but on the wrong selection of legal arguments.
The judge recommends other heavier laws to proceed with the case, for
example suing the providers for acting as accessaries.

The examining magistrate immediately responded by sending a threatening
letter to at least one of the ISPs involved, Init Seven AG. Though she
admits she was wrong with her blocking order, she warns that the ISP is
still with one foot in jail. If Init Seven AG, in its quality as “conductor
of society and receiver of this formal warning” decides not to block the
incriminated websites, “you risk a criminal investigation against you as an
accessary to crimes of defamation, slander and injure”.

Original text of the decision (in French)
http://www.nrg4u.com/abuse/canton-de-vaud-tribunal-daccusation.pdf

(Contribution by Felix Rauch, Swiss Internet User Group SIUG)