How can America prosecute a UK citizen for an alleged
crime which took place in the UK? How can Theresa May sign his extradition
order when there are so many real criminals who need sending to the US for
justice?
What follows is a plea from Jimmy Wales, founder of
Wikipedia -
Two
years ago, Richard O'Dwyer was studying for a multimedia degree at Sheffield
Hallam University. In his spare time he ran a website that acted as a search
engine for users to find links to watch TV and films online.
He
respected the rules -- deleting content when he received requests to remove it.
But despite this, he’s now been accused
of copyright violation and could face 10 years in a US prison,
after the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, signed an extradition order in
March.
Richard
is not a US citizen, he's lived in the UK all his life, his site was not hosted
there, and most of his users were not from the US. America is trying to prosecute a
UK citizen for an alleged crime which took place on UK soil.
Given
the thin case against him, it is an outrage that he is being extradited to the
US to face charges. That's why I've
just launched a
petition on Change.org to stop his extradition -- and why I hope you
will sign it today. Click
here to sign the petition.
When
I met Richard, he struck me as a clean-cut, geeky kid. Still a student, he
reminds me of many great entrepreneurs and the kind of person I can imagine
launching the next Wikipedia or YouTube.
Copyright
matters but from the beginning of the internet, we have seen a struggle between
the interests of the "content industry" and the general public.
Richard is the human face of that
battle, and if he's extradited and convicted, he will bear the
very real human cost.
The
internet as a whole must not tolerate censorship as a response to mere
allegations of copyright infringement. As
citizens we must stand up for our rights online.
Together,
the public won the battle against SOPA and PIPA. We proved that when we work
together we can protect freedom on the internet. Together, I
know we can win this battle too.
Thanks,
-
Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder