A commercial bank recently launched by Loveworld Nation (also known as Christ Embassy), Parallex Bank, assaulted freedom of the press on Monday when its agent caused the takedown of THE WHISTLER website for about four hours.
THE WHISTLER had published a report of the launch of the bank titled “Christ Embassy Launches ‘Free’ Commercial Bank” using information provided on the bank’s own website on January 17.
The bank said it would provide some interest-free services including “5 Free Interbank Transfers Daily” and zero maintenance fees on all accounts.
The report immediately went viral.
Apparently not expecting it would so quickly come into public scrutiny, the bank decided to hire a cyber-security firm—iZOOlogic– based in the United Kingdom, which wrote THE WHISTLER to step down the report.
When this did not yield the desired result, the firm went through our website’s hosting company to report a copyright infringement alleging that THE WHISTLER published a content it “did not authorize.”
The host, acting on the wrong information provided by Parallex bank, took down the website for about four hours.
After being notified about the false allegation, THE WHISTLER explained that there was no copyright violation since the information used in the report was publicly available on the bank’s own website.
The clarification led to the restoration of the newspaper’s website.
Parallex bank’s action was no doubt an assault on media freedom and THE WHISTLER is prepared to seek redress in court for the damages caused.
