This is the image that comes up when people try to access Wikipedia.de, which used to be forwarded to Wikipedia.org. It reads:
The county court of Luebeck (North Germany) has issued an order in the name of Lutz Heilmann, Member of Parliament (left party/post-communist) that the German Wikipedia (Wikimedia e.V.) must not allow linking its domain wikipedia.de to the Web site wikipedia.org, as long as the German language version of wikipedia.org makes certain statements.
Update: looks like Heilmann came to his senses. In a statement (translation), he says he’s sorry for the legal action that was taken and that the autoforward of wikipedia.de will soon function again.
According to OhMyNews, these statements include Heilmann’s past as a member of the Stasi - the former official secret police of East Germany - as well as allegations that he has threatened an ex-boyfriend.
An earlier report from Focus Online (article in German) says Heilmann objected to claims that he had interrupted his studies at university, and that he had participated in a business venture involving pornography.
Heilmann also took legal action against three Wikipedia users who had worked on the article.
Of course, ordering a court to take such extreme measures only draws more attention to the entry, which is still available both in English and German since the Wikipedia servers are hosted in Florida under United States law.
The entry for Lutz Heilmann is currently ranked number 1 on wikirage’s list of Wikipedia entries that are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time.
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Talk about silly and bizarre…
Only in Germany
Mike
http://www.wannadevelop.com
I live in Germany and the best part is the negative publicity this moron has received :-).
Nobody had even heard of him before but now everybody knows he is and idiot :-).
Sometimes it does help out
Now he is know by everyone right? 
This Politicians party “Die Linke” is the direct successor of the communist German “Democratic” Republics only party (SED). Shows how such people feel about free speech.
@Aunt Zeituni exactly!
Your article makes false assumptions, as does most of the media coverage in Germany on this issue. In his appeal to the court, Heilmann objected to false claims which stated that Heilmann’s immunity as a member of parliament had been disbanded. This is by all means not true. This is why the court has ordered to temporarily shut down the German wikipedia portal site.
Some German coverage on the false assumptions in the media can be found here http://www.ralf-lang.de/?p=65 and here http://it-recht-blog.de/wikipe.....-wikimedia
>freedom of speech applies
Right, and there is no freedom of speech in Germany. You analysis rocks.
You made that connection, I didn’t.
Fact is the Luebeck court can’t block the articles if they’re hosted in the US because of its constitution, whether it would want to or not, but they did block the autoforward for the .de domain.
@Ken
You don’t understand the difference between freedom of speech applies vs there’s no freedom of speech in Germany.
The former is to use freedom of speech to value what is been banned. The latter is a general statement of the state of Germany to not permit speech.
The generalization from what the evidence does not make the generalization right.
Freedom of speech doesn’t involve telling lies and insults about other people. Contrary to what the article said, the parliament has not disbanded Heilmann’s “Parlamentatische Immunität” (roughly: indemnity). That’s a fact every wikipedia author or blogger could have checked before telling everbody Heilmann wants to kill freedom of speech.
Your interpretation of freedom of speech is very wrong. Telling lies and insulting people are part of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech has one primary component, the component of freely expressing ones individual right to thought. The receiving end of the speech is the problem. Many people have many different interpretation of speech and that’s not the problem of the person expressing their freedom of speech but the problem of the receiving the speech.
Shouting fire in a theater is also under the guise of freedom of speech. Sending threaten letter is also freedom of speech.
When YOU people talk about freedom of speech, you talk about a confined value of speech in said region. Your view of freedom of speech is paradoxically and inconsistent with the definition of freedom of speech.
Amen
“Shouting fire in a theater is also under the guise of freedom of speech”
Sure. In the US, we have the right to express ourselves in any manner that we see fit, including the burning of the flag.
Now, be careful: do not overlook the responsibilities that [always] come with freedom. “Freedom of Speech” certainly *DOES NOT* include actions that are against the law.
For instance: if I decide to burn [my] American flag, I have the right to do so, plus, it is legal. On the other hand, if I burn my neighbor’s flag, *that* is illegal, it is “destruction of property” etc.
Most young people in the US like to use the “freedom of speech” justification when messing up, believing that anybody can do anything because of the First Amendment. This stupid, stupid myth is constantly propagated by TV shows (and we know what TV does to us… or, we *should* know)
Paradoxically, “Freedom” is never free: it always comes with the “price” of responsibilities…
@Tom and Matthew
Freedom of speech is an individual right. Not a right to impose upon another.
The people who don’t understand what this freedom of speech to include the receiver of the speech. But that’s not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is only confine to the individual right to express thought in speech form.
@Freedom — You don’t make much sense. What country are you writing from? Tom and Matthew are right on, commenting on freedom of speech in the United States.
There is freedom of speech on the Internet, but up to a point: you start posting racial and/insulting/offending comments on this blog (and many others) and your comments are erased — and your IP address could be blocked at any time.
@Carly
You don’t understand what was being said. Freedom of speech is an individual right. It can’t be taken away. When your express your freedom of speech on someone’s property, of course the speech is still yours but the speech in its expressive form on someone’s property is your speech on someone’s property which they have the right to remove if they choose.
Do you see the difference? Meaning, you can take your speech to another site, to your own, etc. and express the SAME thing. That right cannot be taken away from you.
Not the first time Wikipedia upset a German.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYvldOuZ6_k
as much as i don’t agree with the legal action taken against wikipedia.de it should be stated that the issue here is not really about “freedom of speech” but more about “libel and slander”.
It is. The website is expressing speech. Even if there’s a criminal intent component, it can be deemed as speech and should be protected by freedom of speech law.
In Germany, libel does not fall under freedom of speech. As in most European countries.
@Freedom — You must be 12 years old or so, because, somehow, you believe that “our” [on the US] “Freedom of Speech” applies to the rest of the world. IT DOES NOT.
The US “Freedom of Speech” refers to the First Amendment of the Constitution. The US Constitution. Take sometime and look it up… but, please, not on “Wikipedia”
This is really amazing, “Wikipedia” has never been a reliable source for anything! It is a well-known fact (acknowledged by its founder) that a lot of information on the site was provided by idiots, pranksters and other misfits.
Although the site has been ‘cleaned up’ to a point, Wikipedia does not provide good information. At best, it provides some guidelines –for information that *must* be checked elsewhere.
“should be protected by freedom of speech law” There is no such a thing.
“Freedom of Speech” refers to the US Constitution First Amendment, which also refers to freedom of religion in the US.
The US Constitution is also known as “the law of the land” (again, in the United States) –
@Josh = I agree with your comment about Wikipedia. It reminded me of a new site “Medpedia” that will pretend to offer free health and medical information for “all people” around the world.
Although this company is apparently backed by good information sources, the contributors of the site’s content do not have to be medical professionals: it could be anybody that says “I can do that” as it happened to Wikipedia on the early days… In other words, “experts” that do not have a clue.
So many ignorant people in this world. Freedom of speech applies to individual right to express thought. Why do people start talking about something else beyond the freedom of speech to mean what does the “receiving” end take as meaning to the speech.
Government be damn if people can’t express themselves freely. If you have a problem with Wikipedia, don’t read it. If you have a problem with libel or slander, don’t read it. The fact that you are reading it, is not the problem of freedom of speech because it has nothing to do with freedom of speech but more to do with your voluntary action of reading it.
I didn’t take Constitution law for nothing. Osshole ignorant people.
What is goings on? think that I am stupid - Please disregardd my comments =
Today Lutz Heilmann announced he won’t take any further legal steps. The forwarder http://www.wikipedia.de to de.wikipedia.org will be activated again:
http://www.linksfraktion.de/pr.....1246470002
I think it’s just bad that a Bundestag deputies, such as Lutz Heilmann so quickly can cripple Wikipedia.
Like, for example in this article.
http://www.blogtopf.de/web20/o.....-gesperrt/
How can guys like him - responsible for the shooting of innocent people at the wall and so on - be in the German parliament nowadays? Fucking communist wankers.
He’s in Parliament because people elected him. That’s exactly what democracy is all about.
By the way he was a body guard, not a politician.
Wow, this is rediculous.
BTW Lutz Heilmann now said, the ‘wrong’ passages have been removed and he wants to end this ‘problem’ with Wiki now… You can read it here: http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt.....19,00.html
Not the first time governments think they can control the web….
@chris faron — I admire your innocence and naivete. Governments DO control the web. Furthermore, the web infrastructure is controlled by the US government: the web’s main hub is just outside Washington DC.
Some time ago there was an attempt by several countries to take away this “control” even partially from the US influence, and with the United Nations’ intervention. This effort failed.
By and large, the web/Internet reflects the freedom we enjoy in the US, but you should not assume that it applies all over the world. Just think of China and its government’s constant control of free Internet access by its citizens…
Let me guess, majority of these people here would like the government to abridge the speech of man. For example, before you can publish any work, the government needs to “abridge” it before you can release. Or that before you say anything, the government needs to approve it and if it doesn’t fit the criteria of the government it should be rewritten.
When speech are changed enough to the government’s liking, they have the power to declare war on a sovereign country.
Keep thinking like you do and you will find yourself one day under the power of a fascist dictator.
Sorry — I am f****g drunk/ don;t know what am writing ==
im gonna drink some champagne.. put money in google while bottom fishing
Two words: power tripping. Simply hilarious.
This is an interesting story, for several reasons. First, it is amazing that there are so many people using the Internet believing that anything can be published on web sites, for any reason and not be responsible for it.
In most countries the current laws apply to web sites as well as to any other publication. This means that the sites’ contents could be legal or illegal, if it complies with the law or not.
Governments have the ability and the responsibility to monitor all sources of information, including web sites, in order to protect all citizens from defamation, libel, etc. plus, pornography and child abuse, which is not tolerated in many countries.
Strictly speaking, this is not “censorship” and /or violation of “freedom of speech” as several comments here allege.
Of course, this would be the rational and expected application of laws, although we all know that many times laws are applied unfairly and unreasonably, particularly in countries with dictatorial governments (eg China). In other words, the “Internet” and web sites are not places that are *unreachable* by authorities –this is a very popular fantasy….
Anthony Miller: Where do you live that “government has the responsibility to monitor all sources of information?” And how in the world have they convinced you that this is good? This is one scary post.
“Governments have the ability and the responsibility to monitor all sources of information, including web sites, in order to protect all citizens from defamation, libel, etc. plus, pornography and child abuse, which is not tolerated in many countries.”
A mistake which was spreaded in almost every relating story is, that the local Wikimedia was blocked. That is not true. It was only forbidden by the court to forward “wikipedia.de” to “de.wikipedia.org”. All content on “de.wikipedia.org” was accessible at every time. That is a huge difference in my eyes.
Germany doesn’t block any content or sites but everybody has the right to take legal action against illegal content. The problem is that even linking to illegal content can be regarded as illegal and can be prohibited by court. This in only one example that shows how much the lawmaker and politicians haven’t understood how the internet works and they still don’t do.
And because they don’t do lobbyists (and other stakeholders ) are feeding their lines and are up to causing big damage to our freedom. That doesn’t happen only in Germany but in almost every country now.
German politicians are working hard, but they have no interested in internet improvements.
And what about 3 months later? Nobody is interested in Lutz Heilmann any longer, Wikipedia is continuing their strategy, and since a few day everybody tells us that Google loves Wikipedia again.
The monopoly position of Wikipedia is outrageous, and as long as so many people us it and pray to Wikipedia god every morning, there won’t be any change in this.
But Lutz Heilmann reached the popular “15 minutes of fame” with that beat against Wiki.
Well done Lutz
Sascha