Case NO. 13/2016: Avishai Abrahami (Wix) – David Rusenko (Weebly)

ETHICAL NOTIFICATION ON CENSORSHIP

Dear Media Alliance, First Amendment Project and Electronic Frontier Foundation,

By means of the present notification, on February 02, 2017, the International Buddhist Ethics Committee notifies you that in the cases carried out against companies Wix and Weebly concerning Human Rights Violations, we have perceived that you have not only been refused to support the Ethics Committee but you also used legal arguments to justify acts of censorship against freedom of expression.

Firstly, the Media Alliance did not believe in the existence of a legal case in the act of censorship against the International Buddhist Ethics Committee, because like Wix or Weebly there are also other web portals where the institution may resort. This superficial argument ignores practically all the advances in the field of civil rights that were achieved in countries such as the United States, where there were formerly high levels of racial segregation against African Americans. At one time African Americans were not allowed to access services offered in facilities for people with white skin, so in general African Americans had different schools, different bathrooms, different water dispensers, different seats on the bus, different pools, different laws, different neighborhoods to live, different jobs and even different democratic system. This injustice was fought by the great civil rights activists, like Martin Luther King. These guardians of freedom were not limited to simply claiming that there was no legal case if there was discrimination or racial segregation in a white-class bath or school since African-Americans could access other bathrooms or schools. In this sense, although the International Buddhist Ethics Committee can access other web portals, such fact does not erase the illegal act that the discrimination received implies.

Secondly, First Amendment Project argued that the violation of freedom of expression against the International Buddhist Ethics Committee was a contract dispute, even stating that one may not have freedom of expression in a relationship with a private company. This type of position violates human rights treaties and agreements, which must be respected by both States and private companies. There are no moments in which a subject loses his human rights, because these natural rights are a consequence of their intrinsic dignity. However, the capitalist system often considers that companies are above the law and may violate human rights and fundamental freedoms of humanity, which is a position that violates international law. If corporations are allowed to disregard human rights and fundamental freedoms, then humanity is doomed to oppression and destruction, because in contemporary technological society, companies have more power than ever.

Third, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the violation of freedom of expression against the International Buddhist Ethics Committee was not a case of high-impact litigation, ignoring that fascist systems are built precisely because of omission or complacency with daily small discriminations and intolerances of low legal impact. If these small discriminations and intolerances are not stopped then they generate catastrophic effects of causality (karma) leading to fascism. Moreover, violation against the Buddhist Nation is a high-impact legal case, because Buddhist Peoples and Spiritual Communities have collective human rights that are additional to individual human rights.

In the act of censorship against the International Buddhist Ethics Committee there were violations of essential rights that should have been protected by the Media Alliance, First Amendment Project and Electronic Frontier Foundation, such as the right to education, the right to benefit from scientific progress; The right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right to freedom of thought and religion, the right to seek and impart information without regard to frontiers, the right to the protection of the moral and material interests deriving from any scientific or literary production, the right to freedom of assembly and association for activities related to culture and information. Therefore, we make available to these three organizations all the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajna) and the whole peak knowledge (satori) possessed by the International Buddhist Ethics Committee & the Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights, so that these organizations avoid continuing to make the mistakes of the past and never again decide to be tolerant or indifferent to violations of human rights such as discrimination and censorship.

Best regards, with a reconciling spirit,

Master Maitreya

President and Ethical Judge of the International Buddhist Ethics Committee (IBEC) and Buddhist Tribunal on Human Rights (BTHR)