[governance] What IGF is for? ONI Asia event rattled by UN
Ian Peter
ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Mon Nov 16 01:59:29 EST 2009
I have been trying to find out exactly what happened here and a lot of the
media reports are wildly inaccurate. What people who were there believe to
be the cease is roughly as follows.
The Chinese Government did complain about a poster in a public area. If it
had been inside the door instead of outside the door, there would have been
no issue that the security police apparently felt compelled to act on.
The workshop went ahead as planned after the dispute about the poster.
One person who was fortunately present during the whole event was (I may
have the title wrong here) was the UN Under Secretary for Freedom of
Expression. He has requested a full report on the incident from the IGF
Secretariat.
It is not clear who exactly the Chinese complaint was to. It was not to the
host country, the Chinese know that¹s not the appropriate way to do things.
It would appear that the complaint may have been direct to the UN Security
Unit who have travelled to all the IGFs and work closely with the
Secretariat. Whether the Secretariat proper had any strong role in the
decision is unknown to me and to those close to the event.
The other thing I have just learnt is that there was a Chinese objection to
the event taking place well before this incident and before IGF at all. It
should not be surprising to anyone that the Chinese complained or that the
Secretariat properly ruled the workshop should go ahead. This then might be
an incident in response to that ruling but I don¹t know.
However, as regards action I am about to write to Markus Kummer on behalf
of the Caucus and express our concerns about the incident and ask if he can
give any further information about the restrictive action and its rationale.
That doesn¹t preclude any other action but I think we should seek more
information as to why the action was taken before going much further.
Hopefully they will respond quickly.
Ian Peter
On 16/11/09 4:34 AM, "Shahzad Ahmad" <shahzad at bytesforall.net> wrote:
> Dear Eric and colleagues,
>
> Following links host the video evidence of what happened there.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-kxYt2LwKc
>
> and
>
> http://www.youtube.com/user/fikratube#p/a/u/0/axMpYddEomc
>
> You may also like to take a look at this:
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/y9y3mua
>
> Will get the jpeg of poster and post it here though I don't know if list
> allows the attachments.
>
> best wishes and regards
>
> Shahzad
>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>
>> From: Eric Dierker <mailto:cogitoergosum at sbcglobal.net>
>>
>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org ; Hempal Shrestha
>> <mailto:hempalshrestha at gmail.com> ; Shahzad Ahmad
>> <mailto:shahzad at bytesforall.net>
>>
>> Cc: Ginger Paque <mailto:gpaque at gmail.com> ; Jeremy Malcolm
>> <mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org> ; McTim <mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com>
>>
>> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 9:35 PM
>>
>> Subject: Re: [governance] What IGF is for? ONI Asia event rattled by UN
>>
>>
>>
>> Perhaps before you jump on such a bandwagon you should get the recording
>> of the event. You should get more than one person (witnesses) account.
>> Security anywhere is not prone to throw things on the floor. Why is no copy
>> of the poster posted?
>>
>> It is not that I am skeptical of being used by Harvard and Oxford
>> publicists in order to get the word out or publish a paper or sell a book.
>> Keep in mind the ONI group is not representative of the persons supposedly
>> being wrongfully censored/filtered. In fact I see no Tibetan or Chinese
>> component to this Academic gathering of western intelligencia. Advocacy is
>> touted on the website but I see no constituent that they are advocating for.
>>
>> In fact I believe there is a UN policy against advertising for the sale of
>> a commodity, service or goods at the events. A poster promoting a book
>> would be in violation of a very good rule.
>>
>> --- On Sun, 11/15/09, Hempal Shrestha <hempalshrestha at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> From: Hempal Shrestha <hempalshrestha at gmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [governance] What IGF is for? ONI Asia event rattled by UN
>>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, "Shahzad Ahmad" <shahzad at bytesforall.net>
>>> Cc: "Ginger Paque" <gpaque at gmail.com>, "Jeremy Malcolm"
>>> <jeremy at ciroap.org>, "McTim" <dogwallah at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 4:21 PM
>>>
>>> Dear Shahzad and friends in ONI,
>>>
>>> It indeed is an act of great concern on the commitment of the freedom of
>>> expression. We stand united against this incident. Further, this should not
>>> create an opportunity for others to hurt the good work that is happening at
>>> IGF. So, +1 for the idea of registering the concern about the incident with
>>> concerned stakeholders/authority.
>>>
>>> In Solidarity.
>>>
>>> Hempal Shrestha
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Shahzad Ahmad <shahzad at bytesforall.net
>>> <http://us.mc839.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=shahzad@bytesforall.net> >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dear Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> Did discuss this with quite a few friends here and most of them agree for
>>>> a joint action. How and what I don't know but probably civil society
>>>> representatives speaking on the plenary can mention this appalling event
>>>> and register the concern. Just a suggestion and then I will really
>>>> suggest MAG members to take this up with IGF.
>>>>
>>>> But I would really urged on the caucus members attending IGF to take this
>>>> up strongly otherwise, such things will keep happening more and more in
>>>> future too.
>>>>
>>>> best wishes
>>>> Shahzad
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: Ginger Paque
>>>>> <http://us.mc839.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=gpaque@gmail.com>
>>>>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
>>>>> <http://us.mc839.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=governance@lists.cpsr.org>
>>>>> ; Jeremy Malcolm
>>>>> <http://us.mc839.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jeremy@ciroap.org>
>>>>> Cc: McTim
>>>>> <http://us.mc839.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=dogwallah@gmail.com>
>>>>> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 7:58 PM
>>>>> Subject: Re: [governance] What IGF is for? ONI Asia event rattled by UN
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not think a boycott is the answer. It removes the people who most
>>>>> object to the action... I think an effort should be made to bring this up
>>>>> as an issue. Can the IGC coordinate on this?
>>>>>
>>>>> Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>>>>>> On 15/11/2009, at 4:02 PM, McTim wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> +1
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Am I overreacting, or should those who do not have workshop commitments
>>>>>> organise a boycott of the IGF tomorrow, and let the Secretariat know
>>>>>> why?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In any case, I hope as many people will tweet and blog about this
>>>>>> appalling action.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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