WHO'S AFRAID OF TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE?
The cases of MEMRI and Internet Archive
In the last two years the censorship against channels, sites and platforms that insist in publishing factual documents and fundamented analysis about the war of Russia against Ukraine and the multiple attacks against Israel coming from Iran and its Islamic terrorist proxies, were censored, blocked partially or completely shut down.
MEMRI
Some weeks ago (around the middle of October), YouTube shut down the channel of MEMRI TV. MEMRI (Middle East Monitor Research Institute) is a 25 years old non-governmental institution dedicated to study the Middle East media, culture, politics, and society, translates shows from Arabic and Farsi to English of more than 100 TV channels, and publishes articles about actuality. THey also make translations of the media in Russia, China, Pakistan and other countries dominated by dictatorships.
Through its articles and videos MEMRI brings to the public in general information and visual documents that aren't avaible anywhere else in English, only in Arabic, Farsi, and other languages that the great majority in the West don't know.
Since I discovered MEMRI work, about 20 years ago, I've been repeating that anyone who wants to know the Middle East in the easiest way is watching / reading their media. If the work of MEMRI TV was shown in the Western Media, the blind and evil supporters of Islamic terrorist organizations (like Hamas or Hezbollah) would be completely discredit and those who still have a drop of moral conscience would certainly change their mind, except for those who won't accept that they have been living merged in propaganda and blatant lies.
The official site of MEMRI is still available and publishing new articles everyday, but the quick and undeniable facts were coming through the videos on YouTube. Shutting their channel was like shutting a direct door to facts and truth. The videos are still available in other channels and in other platforms, but curiously in some places what appears are only the videos from Islamic media condemning MEMRI and accusing them of espionage, even if the TV shows they translate to English are wired publicly in Arabic and Farsi. MEMRI doesn't present any interpretation of the contents, only translates them to English. Each viewer will draw his / her own conclusions, and they are very obvious. Besides, MEMRI also publishes those critical videos of their work and that is a clever and honest choice. It shows live the absurd assumption that no one will watch what they are doing and saying; and if what they are saying and doing publicly is translated and showed to the general public in the West, they consider that an aggression and an invasion of their national sovereignity! Anyway, many of those channels are broadcasted abroad, though only in Arabic and Farsi, for their indoctrinated public. How can they expect that no one would have the curiosity to watch them and use an automatic translation. Fortunately, even if MEMRI wasn't doing this excellent work of monitoring and translating the Islamic TV channels, there are many dissidents coming from those countries that are already doing the same thing. We should be thankful to them too.
Western channels like BBC Arabic are also used to echo the same propaganda, and BBC is supported by the taxpayers that are also the targets and victims of Islamic terrorism. Al-Jazeera, that was created by the Muslim Brotherhood and is funded by Quatar, broadcasts both in Arabic and English. In the English version they pretend to be more reasonable and impartial, but they aren't. The fundamental points of view are the same of the most radical Islamists. They invite lots of westerners to comment but only those who aggree with them as a mean to legitimate their propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. The fake Palestinian cause, invented by the Russians and Yasser Arafat in the sixties, totally uncovered their bias and the fact that they hire actual terrorists from Hamas and other Islamic terrorist groups. In 90% of the cases, when they say "Israel killed one more journalist", they forget to tell that it was in fact an undercover terrorist that participated in the October 7 massacre or was holding Israeli hostages as slaves in their own houses in Gaza.
The use of the Arabic language, a colonial language imposed by Islam to all the peoples they conquered, occupied and oppressed through the Middle East, Africa and Asia, is in itself a tool of terror, a kind of "secret" language to connect all those who hate the West, from outside and from inside.
The MEMRI videos are the most accurate portrait of the indoctrination, the fanaticism and the slave mentality of the majority of the people in the Islamic countries. From now and then, someone more reasonable, more moderate and even critical will appear, but they really are a rarety. And if anyone dares to challenge the only accepted and imposed "truth" is insulted and humiliated live as a lesson to the others who dare to think by their own heads.
Since a month ago or so, YouTube did another strange thing: reduced the size of the automatic subtitles in a way that makes almost impossible to read and watch at the same time. MEMRI videos had the advantage of having the subtitles incorporated in the video in a reasonable size. Another thing that is happening is that the subtitles appear in delay in relation to what the speaker is actually saying. So, the small size of the subtitles and the delay in the translation work as a kind of distraction. If they have so many experts working there, why didn't they fix these two problems?
MEMRI is now commemorating 25 years of an incredible work, a true PUBLIC SERVICE, that has been decisively useful not only to common people but also to governments and authorities that must constantly deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Since the October 7 massacre in Israel, MEMRI has been even more active and revealing the reactions in the countries that support Islamic terror, coming both from official sources and from the civil society that usually echoes the state position. Along the last year (2024), MEMRI had more than 200 million views of their videos. That was something that the Islamic theocracies and autocracies couldn't stand. YouTube surrendered to the pressure and shut down MEMRI's channel instead of defending the right to free expression and information. The simple fact that those videos only present accurate translations of the Islamic media should be an argument strong enough to dismiss any unfounded complaints.
In its 25th anniversary MEMRI declares:
IN THE LAST 25 YEARS
«For the past quarter of a century, MEMRI has been providing
vital research, primary source translations, and original analysis to the
governments of the U.S. and its allies, and to their counterterrorism
officials, law enforcement agencies, militaries, and other authorities,
assisting them in tackling threats and facing adversaries. We work with news
organizations and media to inform their understanding of the complexities of
issues and developments in all these countries, and serve as a valuable resource
for academia and legislatures worldwide.
SINCE THE WAR
Since the Hamas attack on the southern front of Israel on
October 7, 2023, and Hizbullah, Iran's other proxy, joining the war a day
later, on October 8, on the northern front, MEMRI staff have been closely
monitoring the Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hizbullah wars around the clock, seven
days a week, publishing an unprecedented number of reports and clips – nearly
600 in the first eight weeks of the war. The translated MEMRI TV clips we
released during this time have had over 80 million views.
As the war continues and expands, with the Iranian
ayatollah's regime joining the war directly with attacks involving hundreds of
missile in April and October, MEMRI's research is playing a more important role
than ever in deciphering enemy plans, strategies, and intentions.
In fact, the war on the southern front has involved the
murder of 32 American hostages as well as another seven American hostages who
remain in captivity. In the north, it is a war against Hizbullah, a group whose
history includes the murder of 17 Americans in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy
in Beirut in April 1983, and that of 241 U.S. military personnel in the bombing
of the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks in the same city in October of that year,
along with countless other terrorist attacks on American targets.
The war involves Iran, a country that constitutes a menace to
the United States, whose leadership regularly lead chants of "Death to
America" and refer to the country as "the Great Satan," and
which holds a sword over Western economies in the Red Sea, where Iran's Houthi
proxies have paralyzed 60 percent of the traffic, and is a direct threat to the
oil of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Iran also has missiles that can
reach Europe, is developing missiles that could reach the United States, and is
trying to develop nuclear weapons. All of this shows that the war is no less
against America than it is against Israel. It is important to note that the
threat from Iran comes not from the Iranian people, but from the Iranian
ayatollah's regime. There is a way to counter that regime, and to pull it down
without war.
The war in the Middle East has also prompted a wave of
violent demonstrations in the United States and the West generally and MEMRI is
working to document and expose extremist and violent organizations in the West.
We monitor imams who advocate hatred and violence against Americans, both Jews
and non-Jews, and are playing an ever-growing role in Western security. MEMRI's
work to document and expose extremism in the West is also more important than
ever. Its monitoring of extremist imams who advocate hatred and violence
against Jews, Americans, and the West, is playing an ever-growing role in
Western security. In just one example, its exposure over years of the
PLFP-linked Samidoun has resulted recently in that group being banned in the
U.S. and Canada.
MEMRI research, with its significant intelligence value, is
filling a major void. We have been assisting governments worldwide, providing
them with our latest research – in the U.S., Canada, Israel, and Europe. In
MEMRI's 25th year, we again prove that we are on the cutting edge in this
field.
In addition to our support to law enforcement, our research
has assisted the Departments of State and Treasury, and other agencies. MEMRI
research was used in public forums by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
and by National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John
Kirby. MEMRI research is being shared on social media by prominent political
leaders, including members of Congress.
With the ongoing war in Gaza and Lebanon, the Iranian
aggression, Qatar's ongoing sponsorship of jihadi and Islamist organizations
and movements worldwide, extremism in the U.S. and the West, and heightened
tensions in the region and across the U.S. and the West, including violent
anti-Israel and antisemitic protests, our work is more crucial than ever.
MEMRI staff – researchers, translators, editors, as well as
technical and distribution teams – are working 24 hours a day from different
locations on the globe and different time zones. The work we are doing is
exhausting, and producing that amount of material is very costly. There is much
to do, and we need your help today. We cannot do this without
you.»
Source: MEMRI
We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our violent criminal organizations policy. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.»
And this was my appeal to YouTube: (they only accepted an appeal with a maximun of 800 caracters, not words, what restricts a lot my arguments)
«None of my videos promote crime or violence, quite the
opposite. I denouce and condemn all kinds of crime and violence. Recently
YouTube also blocked my channel with the same accusation, evoking a private
video of 25 seconds that was meant to be the introduction to the play Endgame
by Samuel Beckett. In spite of being a manifestation against violence, YouTube
asked me to remove that private video, which I did, and my channel became
visible again. My playlist “Archive of Memory” has the same purpose: condemn
violence and censorship. Even so, if you demand me to erase it, I’ll do it. But
you must allow me to enter in my YouTube studio, something I can't do since you
removed my channel.»
The Internet
Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to
cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check
out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to
check out as many copies as the Internet Archive and its partner libraries
physically own. That means that if the Internet Archive and its partner
libraries have only one copy of a book, then only one patron can borrow it at a
time, just like other library lending. Through CDL, the Internet Archive is
helping to foster research and learning by helping patrons access books and by
keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest in them.
Four publishers
sued the Archive, alleging that CDL violates their copyrights. In their
complaint, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House claim CDL
has cost their companies millions of dollars and is a threat to their
businesses.
They are wrong.
Libraries have paid publishers billions of dollars for the books in their print
collections, and are investing enormous resources in digitization in order to
preserve those texts. CDL helps ensure that the public can make full use of the
books that libraries have bought and paid for. This activity is fundamentally
the same as traditional library lending, and poses no new harm to authors or
the publishing industry. Libraries have never been required to get permissions
or pay extra fees to lend books. And as
a practical matter, the data shows that CDL has not and will not harm the
publishers' bottom line.
The Internet
Archive and the hundreds of libraries and archives that support CDL are simply
striving to serve their patrons effectively and efficiently, lending books one
at a time, just as they have done for centuries. Copyright law does not prevent
that lawful fair use. Indeed, it supports it.
On July 7, 2022,
we filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to put an end to this
dangerous lawsuit. On March 24, 2023, the court ruled against the Internet
Archive, finding that the Internet Archive's CDL program was not a fair use. On
Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision. While deeply
disappointed by the outcome, EFF was proud to stand with the Internet Archive
to defend an essential public service.»
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
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