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

[McTim]

Shahzad,

Truly outrageous, your group should really complain to Markus and get
your books back immediately, with an apology.

I think this shows how misguided it is to have gov'ts play an
increasingly large role in IG.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel



On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Shahzad Ahmad <shahzad at bytesforall.net> wrote:
> 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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