Mein-Parteibuch.org

Who thinks, a big one in politics like the Prime Minister of Portugal, leader of the portuguese Socialist Party and current President of the European Council, José Sócrates, would be just as indifferent as like other world leaders about the blogsphere, is definitely false. José Sócrates talked about the blogsphere even on portuguese TV (sorry, only in portuguese, no English transscript or subtitles so far):

Howdy, what’s going on there in Portugal? Just a few days before he took over the presidency of the European Council, José Sócrates has filed a defamation complaint against the portuguese blogger Professor António Balbino Caldeira, who is publicly asking questions about the Prime Ministers 1996 licentiate degree in civil engineering from “Universidade Independente” since the year 2005.

This smells pretty much like misusing a prosecution office for censorship. There is even a petition related to this topic. As José Sócrates is the current president of the European Council, the German Parteibuch blogger asked the Spokeswoman of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, Clara Borja, for explanations:

Dear Ms Borja,

I read about a recent defamation complaint of Mr Jose Socrates against
Mr António Balbino Caldeira in relation to allegations of anomalies
about some kind of licentiate of Mr Jose Socrates. As a citizen and a
blogger I am concerned about the human right on freedom of speech.

Therefore I have some questions to the Portuguese Presidency of the
Council of the EU:

1. What is the exact subject of the defamation charges?
2. What is the background of the allegations of anomalies of the
licentiate of Mr Jose Socrates?
3. Are there planned any special activities by the portuguese presidency
of the council of the european union to enhance the situation of the
right on freedom of speech as declared in Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights?

I’m looking forward to your answers and will publish them on Mein
Parteibuch to share these answers with the public.

Sincerely yours,

Marcel Bartels
Mein Parteibuch

There was no response from Ms Borja. So here is a response from a cat to Mr. Sócrates. Let’s congratulate Mr. Sócrates for his good job. Prosecuting a blogger for defamation is really a very good way to become very popular in the blogsphere. And of course it’s a very, very clever way to become every bloggers darling. So let’s thank Mr Sócrates for unifying bloggers all over Europe. Let’s appreciate his courage to do this without any fear to make himself uncomparably ridiculous.

In January Bavarian conservative politician Gabriele Pauli tackled Bavarian’s chief of government Edmund Stoiber for trying to obtain “information about lovers and alcohol consumption” and successfully forced him not to candidate for re-election in 2008. This way up she became by far the most prominent female politician of Bavarian conservative party CSU. Now her faith has changed and she is in the news for a “panty-affair”.

(more…)

Many bloggers put their contents under a restictive license. This article will show, why it is a good idea to remove copyright protection from blog contents to make censorship attacks unattractive for the censors.

In the western hemisphere open censorship is for reasons of national constitutions and problems with article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights somehow problematic. So governments and courts following government orders invent new ideas to get information out of the internet and out of the world. Some, like the British government did it with David Shayler or like US judge T.S. Ellis did it with Khaled El-Masri, try it’s best to classify all information on government misconduct as state secrets.

(more…)

To whom it may concern

At the announcement for German re-elections I took words of Franz Muentefering literally, became member of the political party SPD and have played a part in political discussions under my real name. In the meantime, the words of Franz Muentefering, with which he persuaded me to join and to engage myself for re-election of Gerhard Schroeder, appear to me as well as dissimulation as the suggestion of Brigitte Zypries to cut costs for cease and desist letters appears to me like nothing else than a smoke grenade thrown out for nothing else than the deception of the public.

Due to the experiences with my website I came to the belief, that public dedication is desired only by German politicians, as sneaks parrot the horseplay of the mass media, which are controlled by themselves. As well I am convinced in the meantime, that the publicly noticed expression of opinion is not desired by many politicians and judges standing close to them, but will be fought forcefully and crafty by them as danger of the discovery of their own crimes and other misbehaviour.

My constitutional right of the freedom of expression in Germany is obviously not worth the paper where it is printed on. It is forseeable, that I would be - by the misuse of courts - financially ruined or even imprisoned if I would continue to publish my opinion or the results of my investigations under my own name.

In the last days I was harassed with four possibly expensive cease and desist letters. The regional court of Hamburg confirmed, that I am oblieged to pay more than 500 Euro “lawyers expenses” for a cease and desist order, which dictates me not to publish a cease and desist letter from a certain lawyer. After this, I now plan not to publish any further critical articles on my website Mein-Parteibuch.de anymore.

Marcel Bartels, 28.01.2007