just a little bit ironic
Background: this conference is a leadup to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that’s happening in Tunisia this fall.
The Tunisian ambassador to Canada has been here the whole conference (and some other guy from the Tunisian gov.) and he was a member of the welcoming commitee. The thing is - the internet in Tunisia is censored, so that Tunisians can’t even visit the websites of the groups that will be at the conference. There’s this human rights guy from tunisia and he keeps on bringing it up, and then the Minister get’s all huffy and has to go and clear his government from blame.
The tunisian government has 9 people in jail for visiting “illegal” websites (according to some guy at the mike)
Now the head of Unesco Canada -Max Wyman- is saying that it’s not an appropriate issue for this group, that we should only be concerned with the document that we are going to deliver to the WSIS conference, and that this stuff should be left up to the Foreign Affairs office.
Oops- now someone from Reporters without Borders is coming up to the mike. This could get ugly ;-) (Their site is one of those blocked in Tunisia).
Also, in case you didn’t know, Nortel is responsable for building the censoring technology in Tunisian as well as China. Apparently they are building a way to sensor sms messages - because China asked for it (china didn’t like all those people sending out sms messages about that whole “SARS” thing).
May 14th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Ummm… WHAT!?!
WSIS should immediately cancel or arrange to relocate the summit. Simple as that. Holding their meeting in Tunisia, without at very least unequivocally condemning, in the strongest language diplomatically possible, Tunisia’s censorship of Internet access, essentially negates not only the WSIS’s credibility, but their raison-d’etre!
“We, the representatives of the peoples of the world, assembled in Geneva from 10-12 December 2003 for the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, declare our common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
They MUST have had an ulterior motive for choosing Tunisia. I just hope it was a diplomatic one and not political/economic.
Sigh. :\
May 14th, 2005 at 10:55 pm
http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/official/dop.html
WSIS Declaration of Principles.
May 14th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
WSIS, censorship & RSF
Michael is in Winnipeg participating in a UNESCO sponsored conference in preparation for it’s presence at the WSIS summit in Tunisia in the fall. This is serious, big boys stuff. ;) He just reported something VERY disturbing: The Tunisian ambassador…