Thank-you for the insightful piece on the ICC and the machinations of the US to derail it (Pambazuka News 117). It therefore came as rather a surprise when I went to the link for a petition against the detention of African journalists and found it on a US site (with 'United States of America' at the top of a list of 'alphabetical' countries) replete with petitions such as the one urging us to slam Hollywood celebs who "endanger the defence of the US" by criticising Bush. There were also gleeful references to the hate mail Martin Sheen receives and how Michael Moore was booed at the Oscars. What is Pambazuka doing affiliated to such a site? I would appreciate a response.

Pambazuka News Replies: We hope you'll understand that we used the site as a vehicle for our petition and can't be held responsible for further postings made subsequent or prior to ours, nor was our selection of the site an indication of affiliation with any other petition on the site. Ideally, we would have liked to have set up our own site, but this was not possible. Quite simply, the petition site which we chose was the best free one available. Rotimi Sankore, the Coordinator of Credo, who is running the campaign with Fahamu, also points out that site managers, like most new media that depend on advertising revenue, run a policy that they will host most petitions as far as they are not defamatory etc etc, and not just those that project particular view points. We therefore have no control over what they host.