Information Asylum

Iceland approves a bill stating that the country will be a worldwide storage for information that can not be published in the country of its origin.

The new law will free from any responsibility providers and operators storing and publishing scandalous or “undesirable” documents, sensational videos and photos blocked by either official or “grey” censorship.

And we can remember the Memorial case: in December 2008, officials of the prosecutor’s office investigative committee searched the NGO office and withdrew paper archive and computer hard disks. Later, the court determined the search as unlawful, and all withdrawn materials were returned. However, before that, but the Memorial was not able to work normally for almost half a year.

A free information storage could solve part of problems of that kind. However, the Memorial case is outstanding since a NGO dealing with research, enlightening and human rights was persecuted having not breached any law. But not only law-obedient people and organizations can be interested in free, uncensored information storage and publication…