The Ukrainian Wikipedia community is protesting laws that go into effect Jan. 21 that criminalize criticism of government officials. In a protest banner message on its site, the community says that free speech on the internet needs to be protected.
The editors
who run the site also announced a daily 30-minute strike from 4 p.m. to 4:30
p.m. on Jan. 21. During that time, the Ukrainian pages of Wikipedia will not be
available.
The new law
allows government to block websites that are engaged in the spread of extremist
information, which is broadly defined. Any material that contains anti-government
material and doesn’t refer to official Ukrainian government websites can fall
into these categories.
Wikipedia
follows the rules of neutrality and impartiality, is apolitical, does not support
any party or ideology, according to its statement, but believes in free
storage, distribution and use of knowledge.
Under the
law, Wikipedia warns it could face prosecution if it provides multiple
perspectives in articles or controversial and disputed material about living
people.
Such
protests are not unprecedented for Wikipedia.
On Oct. 4,
Italian Wikipedia went on strike against attempts of the Italian Parliament to
adopt laws assigning liability to internet sites for failing to remove untrue information
about people.
On Jan 18, the English section of Wikipedia
protested a proposal to close websites that publish content violating copyright
holders or that distribute information without their consent.
On July 10,
2012, Russian Wikipedia struck against a law that banned certain websites.
And on Oct.
1, 2012, Ukrainian Wikipedia community protested an earlier attempt to
introduce criminal penalties for slander. Protests forced the law to be withdrawn.
