The Dutch Pirate Party is taking local anti-piracy group BREIN to court in the hope of overturning a recent order that prohibits the Party from operating a Pirate Bay proxy site. The Pirates claim that the Hollywood backed group is guilty of "legal harassment" and "trampling people's freedoms." They demand that the court overturns the previous 'ex parte' verdict to allow the Pirate Party to be heard.

The legal battle over Internet censorship is heating up in the Netherlands, as the local Pirate Party is now suing anti-piracy group BREIN.

Two weeks ago BREIN ordered the Party to take down a reverse Pirate Bay proxy. The site allowed subscribers of two Dutch Internet providers to bypass a court ordered blockade of the notorious torrent site, and BREIN argued that the proxy was sabotaging this order.

Initially the Pirate Party refused to give in to the demands, but when they were confronted with an injunction from the court right before the weekend they had no other choice than to comply. The Pirates took down the reverse proxy and replaced it with a protest page linking to dozens of other ways people can access The Pirate Bay.

On Saturday, BREIN sent a follow-up letter urging the Party to take down these links as well, including the Party’s generic proxy. However, aside from removing the hyperlinks, the Pirates rejected these demands. Instead, they have now announced that they will sue the anti-piracy group.

“By dragging BREIN to court, the Pirate Party finally has the chance to put forward arguments to strike the court injunction that was unilaterally imposed on it last friday by Dutch entertainment industry organization BREIN,” the Party announced today.

Through the courts the Pirate Party hopes to get the ex parte injunction overturned. The Party argues that they have the right to be heard, and say that the court allowed BREIN to take justice into their own hands by adding extra demands under threat of draconian penalties.

“It is time that the industry attack dogs understand that you can’t trample on people’s freedoms for your own monetary gain,” Pirate Party board member blauwbaard says.

“Today we’ll try to explain to the judge how giving BREIN one blocking instrument causes them to stretch it in unjust ways to stifle free speech and the free flow of information. Paraphrasing Victor Hugo, nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” he adds.

The Pirate Bay case is keeping BREIN busy this month as the group is also taking two new Dutch Internet providers to court to expand the local blockade.

The Pirate Party is glad that finally they will be able to strike back at their nemesis. Freedom of speech and an Open Internet are two core issues of the Party which they are eager to defend.

“The Dutch Pirate Party calls upon all pirates and freedom-loving landlubbers to stand up and support our fight against censorship. Because as Martin Luther King might have said it, were he alive today, ‘freedom on the Internet is indivisible, a threat to freedom of the Internet anywhere is a threat to freedom on the Internet everywhere’,” they state.

Update: Adding fuel to the fire, the prominent Dutch weblog Geenstijl created a proxy redirector at FuckTimKuik.org. Ouch.

Update 2: The Pirate Party scored a first victory in court.