Messages of support and defiance

BRITONS and their supporters around the world are flooding the internet with messages of shock, outrage and defiance over the London terror blasts.

Their collective voice echoed the international public response following the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington when the internet provided a forum for emotions and solidarity.

One London-based site, www.werenotafraid.com, has been deluged with digital photographs and messages since it was set up in the hours after the bombings.

“My friend Adam sent me a picture of himself in one of the bombed underground stations at King’s Cross and I published that on my weblog,” said Alfie Dennen, a publisher of

internet sites in London. “Then there were so many amazing responses from people, that I thought we should make ‘we’re not afraid’.”

In three hours, he and two friends registered the domain name and began publishing a flurry of messages.

“The problem is we posted 750 images so far, and there are 1,500 more just waiting to be processed. It is only three of us, it is a full-time job. I dropped everything else I was doing and ever since I have not slept very much.”

After German and Italian media reported on the site, emails and photos have flooded in from Berlin, Munich, Rome, Naples and Milan.

Many photographs appeared with people sticking out their tongues, hurling insults or making obscene gestures at images of Osama bin Laden and his comrades in the al-Qaida network.

On another website, London’s Thoughts, Capital FM’s news editor Matt Schofield paid tribute to London’s spirit of “defiance, resilience and determination not to let terrorists disrupt our lives” and published a long list of emails.

Blake Edwards, who moved from Sydney, Australia two years ago and works in a London hospital that went on standby to help in the attacks, wrote that the experience was devastating “but we have showed the world and these people just how strong everyone here in London is”.