Blogosphere Revolt Against the Censoring of Murray

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press Saturday September 22, 2007 23:55 by Tech1.0

Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan and author ( http://www.murder-in-samarkand.com/ ), has had his blog site shut down at the request of the potential Arsenal chairman, Alisher Usmanov.

Usmanov's (a billionaire/oligarch/crook/etc) justification for this quelling of dissent appears to be that Craig is telling the truth about him, and that this can't be allowed.

See ( http://charliemarks.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/craig-murr...anov/ ) for Murray's original, criminally honest, post.

Here's the first paragraph.

"Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal chairman, is a Vicious Thug, Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you. You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the media because he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers, including the latter:

“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov does not have any criminal record.

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who
rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”, a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed. That is completely untrue......."

video of the debacle from channel4
http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=9334

It appears that the reason for the shutting down of the server is not that there's anything legally wrong with the comments, (as their bona fides have not been, in any way challenged) just that the server provider, Fasthosts, are a bunch of cowardly weasels who cravenly bowed to a call from Usmanov's legal eagles. They even closed the entire server which had the effect of deleting several other related and non-related political blogs -- such as Boris Johnson's website!

Indeed the entire content may be stripped from Murray's site,

As Craig says. (from http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lenin/1241690852924961346/
also,
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-happens-whe....html )

"We all know that money talks. It seems it can stop other people talking, too. There appears a real danger that all the material on the site may be lost and not able to be recovered"

It's time to stand as one on this one.