Wikipedia is sued by a murderer who committed a disgusting manslaughter of a famous German actor Walter Sedlmayr. Attorneys took legal actions against the online encyclopedia on behalf of Wolfgang Werlé, one of two men to receive a life sentence for the 1990 murder of Sedlmayr.
Last month Wikipedia was served with the letter from the attorneys to remove the name of the vile killer from it English language entry. They noted that they do not deny his crime but Wikipedia’s article violates the German law under which the murderer is considered a private individual and his name cannot be divulged.
Werlé's "rehabilitation and his future life outside the prison system is severely impacted by your unwillingness to anonymize any articles dealing with the murder of Mr. Walter Sedlmayr with regard to our client's involvement," they wrote. "As your article deals with a local German public figure (such as the actor Walter Sedlmayr), we expect you are aware that you have to comply with applicable German law."
At the moment the attorneys are filing a lawsuit against Wikipedia in the trial court of Hamburg.
As noted by online media editions this is just another case when the freedom of speech on the Internet is being attacked under different kind of jurisdictions. If this lawsuit succeeds that will mean the First Amendment to the US Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech for those who tell the truth doesn’t work in fact. It would become a precedent for other potential cases against websites across the globe that disclose the true facts about different events.
As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Jennifer Granick said: "At stake is the integrity of history itself. If all publications have to abide by the censorship laws of any and every jurisdiction just because they are accessible over the global internet, then we will not be able to believe what we read, whether about Falun Gong (censored by China), the Thai king (censored under lèse majesté) or German murders."
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