For those of you that may not have come across this, recently a 17-minute documentary on the Quran and Islam, which used images of Islam's Quran mixed with images and film of terror attacks and bombings by Muslim extremists, was taken down from LiveLeak.com. LiveLeak is a British video-sharing website. The organization took down the video after reporting that there were "serious" threats to its staff members.
The documentary was posted against the wishes of the Netherlands government by Geert Wilders, a Dutch MP and leader of the Freedom Party. The name of the video, Fitna, is an Arabic word meaning "strife."
It appeared on the political party's website first, but soon disappeared because of "technical difficulties," reported the London Times. Then it appeared on LiveLeak.com, only to be replaced with an advisory that read: "Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature, and some ill informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly affect the safety of some staff members, LiveLeak has been left with no other choice but to remove Fitna from our servers."
Another message on the site read: "This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net but we have to place the safety and well being of our staff above all else. We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us their support. They realized LiveLeak.com is a vehicle for many opinions and not just for the support of one."
Immediately, the blogosphere responded. And surprisingly, so did LiveLeak. The video is back, with this message attached: On the 28th of March LiveLeak.com was left with no other choice but to remove the film "fitna" from our servers following serious threats to our staff and their families. Since that time we have worked constantly on upgrading all security measures thus offering better protection for our staff and families. With these measures in place we have decided to once more make this video live on our site. We will not be pressured into censoring material which is legal and within our rules. We apologise for the removal and the delay in getting it back, but when you run a website you don't consider that some people would be insecure enough to threaten our lives simply because they do not like the content of a video we neither produced nor endorsed but merely hosted.
View "Fitna" HERE on LiveLeak.
Should LiveLeak again lose their nerve, the video is also availabled HERE.
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