Germany: Website closed because of Mohammed cartoons

Posted by Anna-Maria Mende on March 10, 2006 at 10:18 AM

The German website www.euroislam.info was shut down this week because it had published the much debated Mohammed cartoons. The website was not closed by the government, but by the internet provider, who hosts the site. The provider Neue Medien Münnich shut down the site immediatley and informed the owner in a letter. In the letter, the provider explained that he had received complaints from "third parties" and also named the fact "that people are dying elsewhere because of the Mohammed cartoons alone."

Because several German mainstream media also published some of the cartoons (see also former posting), it seems that the publication of the cartoons alone might not have been the reason for closing the website. The blog In Flanders Fields assumes that the provider decided to shut down the whole site, because he did not agree with the contents of the website in general, which are very critical towards Islam.

The euroislam site is not the first that was closed in the wake of the Mohammed cartoons. The Swedish government also shut down a website of a far-right political party newspaper for the same reason, reported the BBC. However, in the German case it was not the government, but the internet provider who took action.

Sources. In Flanders Fields, BBC

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