by Charlie Calam
In response to the vicious attack on Alec McFadden, President of Merseyside Trades Council, by fascist thugs, Searchlight has launched a call for the Redwatch website to be shut down. McFadden was attacked after his details were published on the site, which hosts the photographs and addresses of ‘Marxists’ (in reality, anyone who does anti-fascist work is a target) alongside incitements to violence. Searchlight estimate that several hundred assaults on left-wing activists can be directly attributed to Redwatch.
In the past, calls for violent websites to be shut down have been met with little action on the part of the police; the distribution of violent pornography is illegal in the UK but campaigners have found it impossible to prevent foreign websites with such material being viewed here. Web-hosting companies are often reluctant to host material which may be illegal; Redwatch is currently hosted abroad for this reason, and often moves server as anti-fascist activists inform their hosting companies of breaches in their terms of service.
In this sense, the campaign to shut down Redwatch already exists; hackers have rendered the site unusable in the past alongside the constant disruption to hosting. However, Searchlight point out that, despite repeated calls, the police have consistently failed to take action against the contributors to the site.
Whilst socialists should not support censorship of the internet via seizure of servers (where it is not a child protection issue), the editors of the site can and should be prosecuted for incitement to violence. Details of Searchlight's campaign can be found at www.stopthebnp.org.uk