Activist site attacked
By Bala Shah

Change.org is an online activism platform for social change that raises awareness about important causes and connects people to opportunities for powerful action. It works with more than 1000 of the largest nonprofits in the world, and has a team of hundreds of dedicated volunteers. 

Currently, it has a petition campaign to stop an Indian law student and prominent social activist Prerna Lal from being deported from USA to India.  Prerna’s entire family are American citizens and she is the only one who has not got citizenship till now even though she has all the qualifications to do so.

Change.org petition campaigns have resulted in tens of successes.  Earlier this month, one of its petition campaigns resulted in Hilton Worldwide signing the Code of Conduct to prevent sexual exploitation of children in the travel and tourism industry.  Another petition campaign, signed by 66,000 people from around the world, forced mobile phone companies to expedite donations to earthquake and tsunami hit Japan.

But the petition to support internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has been arrested by the communist Government, has run into powerful opposition.  Even though more than 107,000 people have signed a petition asking Weiwei to be released, elements of the Chinese establishment are unhappy with the petition website and have attacked it

“
Change.org is currently experiencing intermittent downtime due to a denial of service attack from China on our web site. It appears the attack is in response to a Change.org petition signed by nearly 100,000 people worldwide, who are standing against the detention of Chinese artist and activist Ai WeiWei. Despite this attack on our members and our platform, we will continue to stand with the supporters of Ai Weiwei to defend free speech and the freedom to organize for people everywhere. In the meantime, we apologize for any inconvenience.
“

It is one thing to attack Government and military systems; it is another to attack ordinary people who have signed a petition.  This hacking attack has only resulted in even more public sympathy for the Chinese artist.