Australia: Prime Minister's Office Has Spoof Website Closed Down
SYDNEY: (RSF/Pacific Media Watch): Reporters Without Borders voiced shock today at the methods used by the office of
Australian Prime Minister John Howard to censor parody website johnhowardpm.org, on which political commentator Richard
Neville posted a spoof speech by Howard about the presence of Australian troops in Iraq.
The prime minister's office had the website closed down on March 14 by going to Melbourne IT, the company that
administers its domain name.
"All the world's leaders are subject to parody and the Australian prime minister should learn to live with it rather
than banning it," Reporters Without Borders said.
"And anyway, to close down a website, a court order should be required, not just an administrative decision. This type
of censorship is unacceptable in democracy, in which website managers have the same rights as those who run traditional
media."
Aping the design of the prime minister's official website, the satirical johnhowardpm.org website carried spoof
statements by Howard. A supposed fault in its registration with Melbourne IT was the grounds given for its closure.
But Reporters Without Borders has verified that it was registered under the name of R. Neville and was therefore
perfectly valid.
Melbourne IT reportedly blocked the domain name in response to an e-mail request from a member of the prime minister's
office. Johnhowardpm.org is now redirected to Neville's personal website on which the Iraq war spoof speech is
available.
Neville has not received any official notification of the site's closure. He angrily told Reporters Without Borders: "I
think that closing down a website is like burning a newspaper, only it is done with a velvet glove. There would have
been people in the street if a newspaper had been censored like this."
Although the site was online for only 36 hours, it received more than 10,000 visits, he said.
Reporters Without Borders has condemned other cases of pressure being put on domain name administrators to censor
websites. Last December, the Kazakh government managed to strip British comedian Ali G. of the ability to use the .kz
domain name for his website.
See: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=15918
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