Filipino Hate Letter



















ArtBell.com CD-ROM

Update: 7/18/2001

Art Bell files lawsuit in PDI case. Read the PRESS RELEASE from Art's law firm.

Update: 7/17/2001

Philippine Daily Inquirer ran an Editorial piece on the Art Bell E-Mail Hoax. Looks like there will be some changes in policy at the PDI.

Update: 7/8/2001

The "INQUIRER'S retraction of story on US radio talk show host" ran in this Sunday's edition of their publication. While it did NOT run as the LEAD story, like the initial story did, it is LISTED as the third story on their website. We don't know how it was placed in the PRINT edition of their paper. They have now supplied the E-Mail address of the columnist, so if you want to write her, here it is: leah@inquirer.com.ph, who by the way, wrote ANOTHER apology in their Monday issue, in an attempt to minimize their legal troubles.

We are still no further ahead in tracking down the culprit, and people are still e-mailing threats to Art, based on the Internet spreading "Chain Letter" of the initial article from the PDI. Of course the "Retraction" is not getting the same benefit of spreading on the Internet, so most people who got the initial PDI article, are NOT getting the Retraction.

If you are the least bit able to help the situation, please take this "Rebuttal-Text Message" and send it to all of your Filipino friends and any Asian news agency, BBS, E-Mail list and newsgroup.

Update: 7/2/2001

Here is Premiere Radio Network's Official Press Release on this matter, which just states the same information we already have laid out here on this page. The webmaster here cautions however, that the UCSD connection (mentioned in the corporate release) is pretty much a dead end and they should not be bothered.

What we need to do is track down the HOT TRAIL of the most recent posting to the net, that resulted in the PDI story. This posting, made within the last month, had our newest email address (feedback@artbell.com) listed in the post. Which means it was initiated by someone who visits our site regularly. We believe this post was initally made to the "pinoytok@yahoogroups.com" email list. We are not able to search the archives of this list, since they are membership based only and have not added new members to their group for some time.

We need to get on that list and search their archives for the initial post. Then we can back-track the source. If anyone has any information regarding a recent "initial" post to any newsgroup, mailing list or Internet BBS, that is not a reply to some forwarded post, please let us know. We would like to track down anyone who creates a "first-time" post of this material.

Update: 7/2/2001

The Philippine Daily Inquirer posts a Retraction. But the damage is done. Multiple death threats have already been received by Art Bell. We know where to put the blame.

Open Letter to My Listeners

July 1, 2001

Another event in the seemingly never ending strange series of events in my life occurred, which will prevent me from being on the air this week. A horrible Racist article which has been on the Internet for almost three years, despite all our best efforts, has just been published by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (The largest circulation Newspaper in that country). This has resulted in hundreds of e-mails and death threats to me and my family. Even the slightest effort on their part, would have resulted in the truth before rushing to publish. The article appeared in the Entertainment section of the Sunday edition (July 1, 2001).

As many of you I hope are aware, I DID NOT WRITE this trash and never would, in fact my wife is half Filipino. It was originally sent from a computer located at U.C.S.D. in southern California. They have sent a apology which has been posted on this website (see below) for almost three years. Over that period of time EVERY inquiry has been answered by myself, my Webmaster and the Network.

We are presently taking all legal steps possible, however in the meantime there is a very real physical danger to my family and myself. This will require my full time attention for the moment. The Newspaper (as of this writing) still, has NOT published a Retraction, even though they have been served with a Demand Letter to do so.

The newspaper's e-mail addresses are feedback@inq7.net, jvaruta@inquirer.com.ph, readersadvocate@inquirer.com.ph, should you care to help, by urging them to promptly retract this dangerous, reckless, thoughtless article. See you soon.

Art & Ramona Bell

Webmaster Note: See some of the comments made to the PDI. And here is a Sampling of the E-Mail Art Bell has had to endure from Angered Filipinos.

Update: 7/1/2001

Filipino Hate Letter Escalates into the Print Medium: See Drudge Report article.

Notice: 6/20/2001

The Filipino Internet community is being USED and ABUSED and HOAXED by a purpetrator of a fraud. A New posting was made recently to the pinoytok egroup mailing list, and it's starting all over.

For almost three YEARS, someone has been posting a racist letter about Filipino's with the subject " ** Filipinos Make Me Puke** " and has signed it with Art Bell's name and email address. Every few months it gets posted again and again on newsgroups and e-mail lists, usually adding some more Filipino hate or language to SUCKER you into responding to it. DON'T DO IT!

Art Bell did NOT write that letter and has been the victim of this fraud. DON'T BE TRICKED INTO REPLYING to it. It's a fake and is only SUCKERING you in to sending more HATE to Art Bell, who didn't even write it.

To help us track down the culprit, if you receive the Racist E-Mail, let us know where YOU got it from and we'll back-track it to the source and stop this INSANITY!

Update: 3/1/2001

It seems with Art's return, the spreading of the hateful material about Filipinos is spreading the net again.

PLEASE HELP TO STOP SPREADING THIS LIE.

There were TWO or more postings made to the Internet that are directed at Filipinos in a very hateful way. The posting on the USENET newsgroup by KatLover@artbell.com and the follow up letter with more hateful words which bears Art's signature and a link to an IRC webpage, are NOT from Art Bell.

The intent of this author who writes these hate mails is to incite those who are affected by the letter while he hides. The person making these fake posts is obviously someone who has a grudge against Art and who is too cowardly to address it head on. When you forward on this fake letter, you only feed the hysteria and increase the hate and anger of your community. And all for NO good reason.

Those almost three year old postings on usenet that are being forwarded by many via email were NOT written by the real Art Bell. Nor was it posted by our artbell.com mail server. The letters that show artbell-irc.com as the website are also fake and have not been written by nor sent from Art Bell. It is absurd to think that a public figure and professional radio host would make such a posting.

On behalf of Art Bell and I, administrator of the artbell.com web site, let me state that these messages did NOT originate either from Art Bell or our domain. Please review the headers of all messages that you have received and send your complaints to that domain's sysop. The messages are originating at ucsd.edu and the fake "From" address was simply typed in.

It has further been determined that the message text that was in the USENET posting, originally came from a web site by a different author:

http://server1.hypermart.net/oldscona/flip.html

This website which is no longer operational stated who the original writer was, but not necessarily the one who posted it on USENET under Art Bell's name. So if you have anything to say to the actual writer of the text, you'll have to dig deeper, because Art Bell was not the writer.

Feel free to copy this notice and forward this on to anyone who is concerned about this. Art and I do not condone such racist statements made in these phony posts and you need to be aware that ANYONE can put ANY address in their newsreader and make messages look like it came from ANYWHERE. However, the headers of such postings will generally show the correct originating host. Which in this case is NOT artbell.com. In fact artbell.com does NOT have any user accounts nor access to USENET.

After this announcement, it is likely this person will choose another fake ID and make similar posts. Once again, check the headers before jumping to conclusions. Also, be advised that neither Art Bell nor Keith Rowland has posted on USENET for over 4 years and don't plan to. (Because of issues like this.) So ANY USENET posting that claims to be from Art should be assumed to be phoney.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

Signed, Keith Rowland and Art Bell

Exception: On Dec 9th 1998, Art Bell made ONE posting to the soc.culture.filipino group, denying the previous posts. So that anyone who reads that group and hasn't been able to see this announcement is advised of the situation. You can check out this post and see the headers of a real post from Art Bell.

Update: Someone else, we suspect a different person, has now posted to the same newsgroup a message which forges artbell@aol.com as the From address. However examining the tracer headers, you'll see it came through a Belgium server. This posting was a better fake than the others (more work was done to try to cover up the headers), but still detectable as not being authentic. In fact, people have already detected this same person making test postings to test groups while trying to perfect their methods. And of course Art would not post such a thing anyway. - KR

Response from UCSD.edu:

From: postmistress@ucsd.edu

I'm very sorry about this occurrence. Unfortunately, this host is a PC in a Library computer lab which is open to all students. We have been looking into authentication solutions which would make this type of occurrence more traceable, but at this time there is no way for us to trace the miscreant. We apologize for the unpleasantness.

Valerie E. Polichar
Manager of Network Technical, User, ∓ Access Services
UCSD ACS/Network Operations

I'm sure after you read this you will make every attempt to stop forwarding the fake postings and RETURN THIS MESSAGE to the person who sent you the fake message and anyone who needs to know. We have been the victim here of hate crimes, taking the onslaught of mail from Filipinos who are responding in anger.

Keith Rowland
System Administrator
www.artbell.com