On the occasion of the anniversary of the burning of books, Villa Aurora Forum and Literaturhaus Berlin invite you to:

Human Rights in the Digital Sphere

Is internet censorship the "book burning of the 21st century", as a staff member of the U.S. State Department claimed in a blog post last March?

Urged on by governments and corporations alike, access and content of the internet are subject to ever increasing control and curtailment. Attempts to control the internet and mechanisms to technically achieve this are becoming more sophisticated by the day.

In Vietnam, home of the 2014 Feuchtwanger Fellow, Pham Doan Trang, a specialized internet police unit eliminates unwanted content from the web and controls the internet cafes. Three bloggers were arrested recently, because they advocated online for more democracy.

The dream of a free internet is over. By now a fierce fight for unfettered access to knowledge and information is raging. What will remain of the internet as a sphere for free speech and democratic participation?

Lutz Hachmeister, Head of the Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationspolitik (Berlin) will discuss the topic with experts from the analog and digital world.