Andrew Hamilton
On March 25 last, the Clare People’s Interactive website was hacked, with it’s entire back catalogue of almost 500 podcasts, interviews and reviews being disabled and almost destroyed. The site, which is a sister site to the Clare People main web presence at clarepeople.com, was disabled by a virus, which systematically deleted sections of computer code needed to operate the site.
The attack came just 36 hours after a message was posted on the Wordpress.com site, asking that the Clare People Interactive site be shutdown. This comment was made by Indian cleric Anthoniraj Thumma, and condemning the site for publishing a cartoon image of Jesus holding a glass of alcohol and a cigarette.
The image was published on the site more than two years ago in relation to an article about a number of new radio stations, including a religious station, which were about to be launched in Ireland at the time.
According to the Mr Thumma’s message the image has prompted “violence and riots leading to destruction” in India.
Father Anthoniraj Thumma is the general secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches, an umbrella group for all Christian religions in India.
Speaking to Clare People last week, Mr Thumma said he had no knowledge of any actions taken against the website.
“Some consequences have occurred which we originally did not intend at all nor even imagined would happen. We may have some lessons to learn from such events,” he said.
“I do appreciate the voluntary service you were doing through your website and feel sad that many hours of your hard labour was lost.”
The Clare People has isolated the virus which attacked the website and has removed the offensive image of Jesus Christ. The site is currently being rebuilt and is expected to be back in full working order on www.clarepeople.com/interactive in the next two weeks.
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