In its latest operation dubbed “#OpBahrain“, Anonymous supporters launched a series of DDoS attacks against web sites connected to the wildly popular Formula 1 Racing series. Included in the attacks were domains associated with the official F1 Web site, Formula1.com along with f1.com, both of which resolve to the IP address 195.219.144.30.
The moves are in protest to the upcoming Bahrain Grand Prix scheduled to take place this weekend in Bahrain. According to Anonymous, the government of Bahrain “continues to use brutal and violent tactics to oppress the popular calls for reformation.” For that reason, they say the F1 Grand Prix in Bahrain should be strongly opposed.
The domains F1.com and Formula1.com were either offline or extremely sluggish late Friday morning.
In addition to the DDoS attacks, the attackers defaced a very low traffic site hosted on the domain f1-racers.net, a domain with no official connection to F1, and one that appeared to have been inactive leading up to the defacement.
The Anonymous hacktivists posted the following announcement on to the defaced f1-racers.net site:
Greetings from Anonymous
For over one year the people of Bahrain have struggled against the oppressive regime of King Hamad bin Al Khalifa. They have been murdered in the streets, run over with vehicles, beaten, tortured, tear gassed, kidnapped by police, had their businesses vandalised by police, and have tear gas thrown in to their homes on a nightly basis.
Still the regmine persists to deny any meaningful reform and continues to use brutal and violent tactics to oppress the popular calls for reformation. Not only is the Human Rights situation in Bahrain tragic, it becomes more drastic with each passing day. For these reasons the F1 Grand Prix in Bahrain should be strongly opposed. The Al Khalifa regime stands to profit heavily off the race and has promised to use live ammunition against protestors in preparation. They have already begun issuing collective punishment to entire villages for protests and have promised further retribution “to keep order” for the F1 events in Bahrain. The Formula 1 racing authority was well-aware of the Human Rights situation in Bahrain and still chose to contribute to the regime’s oppression of civilians and will be punished.
We demand the immediate release of human rights worker Abdulhadi Alkhawaja who has spent over 70 days on hunger strike. He has committed no crimes and is being punished by the regime for advocating people’s basic human rights. Free him and all other political prisoners in Bahrain. End torture. Deport all mercenary police and stop the use of tear gas against civilians.
We Do Not Forgive. We Do Not Forget. Expect Us.
0x0 was and still is here. Join #OpBahrain
