[governance] No room at the inn

[Danny Younger]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2005 17:11:14 +1200
From: Franck Martin <franck at sopac.org>
To: Pacific Islands Chapter of ISOC
<picisoc at lyris.spc.int>
Cc: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org

PICISOC MEDIA RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pacific Islands Regional Advisor banned from major
World IT Meeting

At a preliminary meeting in Geneva preparing for the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) meeting
next month, the Pacific Islands Regional Advisor on
this major global initiative was last
week excluded from observing proceedings.

"Two incidents this week have dampened spirit of civil
society and private sector representatives," the
advisor, Ms 'Apisake Soakai, told members of the
Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society
(PICISOC) in an e-mail from Geneva last Tuesday.

"On Monday morning before session started members from
the private sector were told to leave the room. On
Tuesday afternoon civil society representatives were
also told to leave the room because the
negotiation session was a private meeting only for
government delegations," Ms Soakai said.

"These incidents were embarrasing, humiliating and
discouraging for individuals concerned, not to mention
the organisation they represented," Ms Soaki said.

PICISOC explained that sending Ms Sokai to represent
the Region at a lead-up meeting to the major WSIS
summit was a very effective use of scarce finances as
her reports were being widely circulated and
studied by governments, the developing Pacific IT
industry, and many NGOs.

Her exclusion denied the Pacific valuable information
needed to prepare for the looming WSIS summit in Tunis
in November, 2005.

PICISOC Chair Rajnesh Singh said that excluding Ms
Sokai and other civil society representatives,
particularly those from developing regions, from WSIS
meetings was outrageous and a denial of the
principles of transparency and good governance the
WSIS process is supposed to facilitate.

"The WSIS and the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU), the organiser, has claimed
multi-stakeholder approach and transparency, but who
are we kidding?" Mr Singh said.

"We are not requesting to be able intervene at all
sessions but at least to be able to know what is
happening in a free and transparent process so that
government delegations are fully briefed for the WSIS
Tunis meeting.

"Is this the model that is been created for the
'Internet Forum' that the ITU through the WSIS process
is trying desperately to promote?"
Mr Singh said.

"The Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society
(PICISOC) certainly do not support any model where
openness, transparency and good governance is not
entrenched in its charter," Mr Singh said.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT -

Rajnesh Singh, PICISOC Chairman,
rajnesh.singh at gmail.com
<mailto:rajnesh.singh at gmail.com>

Franck Martin, PICISOC Vice Chairman,
franck.martin at gmail.com
<mailto:franck.martin at gmail.com>
skype.com <http://skype.com>: franckhlmartin

BACKGROUND -

About PICISOC
PICISOC is an organisation encompassing 22 Pacific
Islands Countries and Territories with a goal to
promote "Internet for Everyone". As such, the board
reflects this philosophy with people from 5 different
countries and from the government and private sector.

PICISOC has over 350 individual members in the Pacific
Islands representing also the diversity of this
geographical area.

PICISOC web site is located at http://www.picisoc.org
and is affiliated to the Internet Society
(http://www.isoc.org) which is the organisation in
charge of the Public Internet Registry (.org domain
names), which also provides support and a legal
framework to the Internet Engineering Task Force
(http://www.ietf.org), the organisation in charge of
making open Internet Standards.



	
		
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