Russian WWW page censorship

To: ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Russian WWW page censorship
From: Paul Jones <pjones@sunsite.unc.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 17:00:12 -0500 (EST)
Reply-To: ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu
Sender: owner-ils310@listserv.oit.unc.edu

What kind of message would you send these folks? What to their administrator?
P
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 23:46:44 -0300 (GMT)
From: web@cs.msu.su
Subject: Plea For Help

Dear Sirs,

We, a sizeable group of students and faculty members of the Department of
Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Moscow State University,
Russia, address you with the following plea for help. 

On March 4 of the present year, our department's Web administrator closed
access to all personal Web pages on sunsite.cs.msu.su, fatally effecting
the personal Web presence of all students and faculty of our department.
It is purported that this action was motivated by the new criminal code of
the Russian Federation, which supposedly states that associates of the
department are not allowed to make information available on the World Wide
Web without special permission. However, we have carefully examined the
referenced criminal code and have found no such rule; in fact, we are at a
loss to find ANY words from which such an excuse for closing our Web pages
could have been construed. We have informed the administration of our
findings, but have been ignored. 

We are persuaded that the presence of our personal pages on the World Wide
Web has -- without exception -- been profitable in supporting:

(1) scientific and informal relations between associates of the department
and our colleagues throught the world; 

(2) educational processes related to the development of new Web and Java
technologies; 

(3) and not least of all -- advertising of Sun Microsystems, as all the
equipment used to house our pages was donated to the department by Sun
Microsystems, which was quite evident on many of our pages.

We beg all who can help convince the administration that their decision to
deny us of our Web presence is unfair and unprofitable, to do so. The one
responsible for the operation of the department's network is Mr. Ruslan
Smeliansky <smel@cs.msu.su>, with whom many of you are already personally
acquainted.

With great respect and sincerity,

The students of the Deparment of Computational Mathematics and
Cybernetics, Moscow State University.