Those wishing to donate to the website Wikileaks are able to do so again, after a legal battle spanning about two years.
As reported, Wikileaks faced a number of financial obstacles in 2010. When Master Card and other companies began to block payments to the site, Icelandic hosting company Datacell began allowing Visa card-holders to donate to Wikileaks via the company.
However, Visa banned its card-holders from donating to Wikileaks, and Ólafur Sigurvinsson, the director of Datacell, was far from pleased. “I have confirmed today,” he told Mbl.is at the time, “that I can support Al-Qaida, the Ku Klux Klan, buy weapons and drugs and all kinds of porn with my Visa card. There is nobody investigating this, but I cannot support a human rights organisation which is fighting for freedom of expression.” Speaking to radio station Rás 2, Ólafur added, “This is a very serious breach, and not just of the contract that we have [with Visa] … now card-holders cannot decide for themselves where they spend their money.”
RÚV now reports that Icelandic credit card holders should have no trouble making donations to Wikileaks. Payments will be coordinated by the French credit card company Carte Bleu.
While Valitor and DataCell went to court over the matter – with Reykjavík District Court ruling that Valitor must open its customers’ payments to Wikileaks within 14 days, or face a fine of 800,000 ISK for every day the payments remain closed – the case has been appealed to the Supreme Court.
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