Chilean Gay Rights Group Finds its Website Defaced

A gay rights group in Chile complained that a skinhead group from the same country hacked its Web site.

According to the gay rights group, the skinhead supremacy group claiming to belong to Pitana allegedly removed a special banner from their website. The banner showed actors campaigning the group called the Movement for Homosexual Integration & Freedom, or MOVILH. The site intruders posted a big photograph of skinhead people in place of the banner.

The hackers also altered the monthly survey in the site by adding uncivil, sex-related questions. In many portions they included postings about MOVILH's methods of defending 'sexual aberrations' and encouraging people who were 'loathingly' homosexual, said Juan Hernandez - a MOVILH activist - in a statement that Santiago Times published on June 7, 2007

MOVILH was, however, able to repair the site's obvious problems fast, though it has not been able to re-link it to Google. Hernandez said one could visit the page only by typing the URL manually or through links in other sites. While attempting to get to the page via a search engine, the page redirects to Google's front page. This results in fewer visits to the site, Hernandez said.

The cyber attack on the group was not the first time. It had suffered two earlier defacements on its website, said Rolando Jimenez, MOVILH head. In addition, in 2005, skinhead communities walked up in protest to Jimenez's house, to the MOVILH's main office and to the offices of Chile's leading gay publication, Opus Gay.

According to Jimenez, they get threats all the time through the Internet and over the phone, something they have got used to in their daily movements. Flyers with Jimenez's name had been distributed. And Jimenez has even received threatening e-mails saying "I've received a bullet carrying your name", and similar things, he said. Santiago Times published Jimenez's statement on June 7, 2007.

MOVILH is thinking of approaching a constitutional tribunal and request the banishment of neo-Nazi groups. While MOVILH propagates freedom of expression it believes democracies must have policies to prevent "totalitarian" influences on society.

» SPAMfighter News - 6/20/2007