Following the recent and ongoing censorship of The Pirate Bay, the Dutch Pirate Party went out on a limb by running a proxy service dedicated to unblocking the site.

After a brief legal battle, yesterday they lost their case against Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The Party is now forbidden from running any Pirate Bay-focused proxy service.

Across the waters of the North Sea, a similar battle is heating up in the UK.

Recently several ISPs were ordered by the High Court there to begin blocking The Pirate Bay. In common with their Dutch counterparts, the UK Pirate Party also set up their own proxy service to facilitate access to the site.

So why does the Party run this service? Here is their statement.

The Pirate Party UK’s proxy for the Pirate Bay

The Pirate Party UK hosts a proxy through which internet users can access the Pirate Bay, if their country’s government or ISP have decided to censor it. We have been hosting this proxy for some time and will continue to do so for as long as we are able.

https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/

We make this service available because we believe in freedom of expression and the right to receive and impart information and ideas without interference. We believe that censorship is never the right answer. It interferes with crucial freedoms and rarely delivers its stated aims – as demonstrated by this proxy it is also easily circumvented. Censorship’s only effect is to hide an underlying problem or pretend it does not exist, rather than dealing with that problem directly. In the meantime, legitimate expression is curtailed.

We believe that websites should not be blocked merely because some organisations claim they interfere with their business model. The Pirate Bay has substantial non-infringing uses; from the promotion of independent musicians, the distribution of independent VODO films to the distribution of free and open source software.

We believe a free and open Internet is a cornerstone of modern society, democracy, artistic expression, education and innovation, and we are deeply worried when we see unaccountable corporate interests being put in charge of censoring it. It’s a slippery slope: we have already seen India blocking Vimeo at the same time as The Pirate Bay. And today, in Holland, the Pirate Party Netherlands has been forbidden from even discussing the means to circumvent state censorship.

We believe that this kind of censorship is totally unacceptable, and will defend ourselves to the full extent of the law against attempts to silence us.

Pirate Party UK.