Skinheads attack Chilean Web site for the second time

For the second time this month, self-proclaimed "skinheads" hacked the Web site of the Chile's leading LGBT rights organization the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Freedom (MOVILH), the Santiago Times reported Friday.

The attack took place on Wednesday, exactly one week after a similar hacking occurred. Calling themselves "Las Grimbas" of La Pintana, they altered the site's monthly survey and several headlines to include lewd, sexual references. According to the Times, they explained that, "we're not neo-Nazis, but rather skinheads…. We meet in the plaza near 36 Santa Rosa. We don't support something that isn't natural. Traditional skins are more manly than any Nazis."

After the June 5 hacking, MOVILH was able to fix most of the problems shortly after the incident. Suffering more extensive damage after this week's attack, the site was forced to close.

"We're frustrated, upset by this situation," said MOVILH head Rolando Jiménez told the Times. "This is clearly illegal and we're calling on the solidarity of all groups to report and fight against this kind of act."

Several human rights organizations have made efforts to show their support for MOVILH.

"We express our solidarity in the face of this unjust attack," Sergio Laurenti, Amnesty International (AI) Chile's executive director, told the newspaper. "In the name of AI Chile, we express our hope that all of this gets resolved soon."

This week's attack was also accompanied by several e-mails, one of which was sent directly to the Times.

"First and last warning," the e-mail stated, according to the paper. "We fight against dangerous scum: MOVILH. First the hacking, next the theft of [MOVILH's] database. Now comes the best part. We're going to turn everything on its head in the Plaza de Armas. Faggots dressed as women dancing in front of children are dangerous. They can kiss and fuck if they want to, but they shouldn't confuse men for women."

Jiménez said attacks like the recent ones are common. "We constantly receive threats via the Internet, phone calls, things that are now part of our daily lives. There have been fliers with my name on them. I get mails saying things like 'I've got a bullet with your name on it.' Things like that," he told the Times.

MOVILH plans to address a Chilean tribunal and ask that fascist groups--including neo-Nazis--be made illegal. While MOVILH believes in freedom of expression, Jiménez feels society needs to be protected from totalitarian violence.

"During the dictatorship I was locked up, exiled. Despite all the power that the dictatorship wielded, I continued fighting for democracy. I certainly paid the price, with my time in prison and in exile. But a group of skinheads? They're not going to intimidate us," he told the paper. (The Advocate)