YellowTimes.org
Shut Down!
Stifling the Voice of Reason
by Firas Al-Atraqchi
Dissident Voice
February 10, 2003
[Editor’s Note: Dissident Voice regularly features articles published in the excellent on-line news publication YellowTimes.org, including the work of former Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri]
The well known
alternative news publication YellowTimes.org
was just shut down without explanation by its hosting company! It recently
published an article by an Iraqi nuclear scientist!
The campaign to
stifle dissent and censor any questioning of current U.S. policies vis-a-vis
the Middle East in general, and Iraq in particular, has reached new levels.
Websites which
host alternative views, and/or views that contradict U.S. foreign policy are no
longer tolerated on the Internet and are systematically coming under hacker
attack and political pressures to "relocate."
YellowTimes.org
has for the past six months withstood intense hacker attacks as it publishes
views that directly question, criticize, and berate the U.S. official line
regarding the impending invasion of Iraq.
"In
addition to e-mail spoof attacks, I think they are attempting to overload our
servers through denial of service attacks, forcing our website to go offline.
Similar incidents happened last time we released an article from Imad Khadduri,"
says Erich Marquardt, YellowTimes.org publisher.
Imad Khadduri,
an Iraqi former nuclear scientist who was instrumental in Iraq's nuclear
weapons program in the 1980s and early 1990s, has charged that recent
allegations concerning the competence and progress of the Iraqi nuclear weapons
program are baseless and untrue.
In an article
published on YellowTimes.org before it was taken off-line by its hosting
company, Khadduri painted a dismal picture of Iraq's scientific community with
many out of jobs and scrounging for work after the Gulf War and subsequent
allied bombing reduced any nuclear hopes to rubble.
Khadduri has
also charged Khidhir Hamza, a former Iraqi scientist with whom Khadduri worked,
with fabricating and exaggerating his importance in Iraq's nuclear program
outlined in Hamza's book "Saddam's Bombmaker."
While several
YellowTimes.org writers have been lauded for bringing previously unpublished
news to its readers and informing the public of news that has been virtually
"blacked out" from mainstream North American media (CNN, New York
Times, etc.), a marginal number of readers have found the website to be
"sick and diseased," and "unpatriotic."
Those who charge
that intellectual debate is unpatriotic forget the words of John Adams, one of the
forefathers of the U.S. Constitution:
"The jaws
of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if
possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. Liberty
cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have … a
right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most
dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of
their rulers."
Or perhaps they
forget Thomas Jefferson: "The only security of all is in a free press. The
force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be
expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to
keep the waters pure."
Are more
websites about to be "shut down"?
For its part,
YellowTimes.org is committed to continuing its ethos in providing its hundreds
of thousands of monthly visitors with alternative news and views, and is not
taking the recent shutdown lightly. "This setback is not going to stop us
from speaking out against leaders and governments who commit gross injustices
against humankind," said Marquardt.
"Believe
me, YellowTimes.org will be back."
Firas Al-Atraqchi, B.Sc (Physics), M.A. (Journalism and Communications), is a
Canadian journalist with eleven years of experience covering Middle East
issues, oil and gas markets, and the telecom industry.
- Firas Al-Atraqchi can be contacted at: firas6544@rogers.com
- YellowTimes.org can be contacted at: YellowTimes@hotmail.com