[governance] What IGF is for? ONI Asia event rattled by UN Security Office

[Shahzad Ahmad]

Greetings from the IGF,

Our ONI reception was rattled by IGF security, who objected to a poster 
advertising "Access Controlled", the book to be introduced at this event. 
The poster was thrown on the floor and we were told to remove it because of 
the reference to China and Tibet.  We refused, and security guards came and 
removed it. The incident was witnessed by many.

The poster promoting ONI new forthcoming book "Access Controlled" was 
removed by the IGF's organizers because a sentence in the poster violated 
UN's policy. The sentence in question reads, "The first generation of 
Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet 
gateways; China's famous "Great Firewall of China" is one of the first 
national Internet filtering systems."

"If we cannot discuss topics about Internet censorship and surveillance 
policy at a forum about Internet governance then what is the point of 
something like the IGF," said Ron Deibert Director of the Citizen Lab, Munk 
Centre for International Studies,and one of ONI's principal investigators.

According to Ron Deibert of The Citizen Lab and Open Net Initiatives (ONI) 
Principal, one of the organizers of the reception event, he will file a 
complaint against the`censorship' of their event and send it to the United 
Nations Human Rights Commission.

"We condemn this undemocratic act of censoring our event just because 
someone is trying to impress or be in the good graces of the Chinese 
government. It is ironic that while people are allowed to gather here to 
discuss freedom of expression online, censorship and surveillance practices 
on the Internet, we are being restricted in expressing our views," said Al 
Alegre of the Foundation for Media Alternatives, a member of the ONI 
Network.

We the members of ONI Network protest on this censorship at IGF, and ask the 
question that What IGF is for, if we can not discuss Internet Governance 
issues at this forum.

Best wishes and regards

Shahzad Ahmad
Bytesforall, Pakistan

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