By Kieran McCarthy in Athens for The Register.
This story has been reproduced with permission.
Antonis Tsipropoulos was arrested at home on Tuesday by the
Greek police following a complaint from a controversial Greek
televangelist that Mr Tsipropoulos's blog aggregation site,
blogme.gr, linked to slanderous material
The content in question is hosted at the FunEL blog, and mocks
the colourful Dimosthenis Liakopoulos for producing trash TV and
being anti-Semitic. However, since the blog is hosted in the US,
the Greek authorities swooped on the popular blogme.gr site,
arresting its owner, ordering him to appear in court in a few days
to face charges and shutting down the service.
Mr Tsipropoulos originally posted a concise account of his
arrest, complaining that he was not in any way able to control the
content he had linked to, but later removed it, reportedly
following legal advice.
The response from the blogging community worldwide has been
swift and furious, with many Greek bloggers planning to organise a
protest outside at the IGF meeting today when their prime minister
formally opens the event at 10am at the Divani Apollon hotel south
of Athens.
The arrest couldn't come at a worse time, following a
high-profile campaign launched earlier this week by Amnesty
International drawing attention to the bloggers worldwide who have
been detained for posting information online. Many Greeks will be
surprised to learn they appear to have joined the ranks of Iran,
China and Vietnam.
What makes the matter all the more timely is that the arrest
highlights an endemic misunderstanding of internet technology and
policy, where authorities try to enforce laws over the net by
charging whoever they can in their own country, who are nearest to
the problem.
The main aim of the IGF meeting is for governments, business,
international organisations and civil society to meet up and
discuss the best methods of working with the internet and one
another. If only the Greeks had been approached by Liakopoulos next
week, the incident would most likely never have happened.
© The Register
2006
