[governance] What happened?

Ian Peter ian.peter at ianpeter.com
Mon Nov 16 07:48:07 EST 2009 

Here is a reply received from Markus Kummer in response to my email below. I
will try to organise a meeting.


Dear Ian,

I am happy to explain more in detail what happened, as I am equally
concerned about these media reports. We don't allow posters, commercial or
otherwise. The IGF Village is the only place to advertise organizations and
their activities.

You may or may not have noticed that we asked a big corporation to take down
their posters/banners at the Rio meeting. They did so without any complaint.

As it happened, the group in question did not act in good faith. They asked
for a room for a book launch and we gave them a room for a book launch. The
incident you are referring to did not occur in the way it was reported. The
poster was already on the floor when the UN officials arrived.

Please let me know what would be a suitable time for a meeting.

Best regards

Markus

 
MY EMAIL FOLLOWS



Markus KUMMER <MKUMMER at unog.ch>, IGF <IGF at unog.ch>

cc  

Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com>

bcc  


Subject  

Information requested re poster removal
    

Markus,

I am writing on behalf of the Internet Governance Caucus, whose members are
greatly concerned by the media reports about the poster removal incident
yesterday. I must also say that IGF delegates of all persuasions have been
talking about this and genuinely want more information.

Is it possible to get from you some information about the Secretariats role
in this and why the action was taken? I believe such information will help a
great deal in gaining a more measured and appropriate response to this
incident.

All the best,



Ian Peter


ith

On 16/11/09 8:46 PM, "William Drake" <william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch>
wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> The ONI event was to publicize the book, "Access Controlled: The
> Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace," edited by Ronald J.
> Deibert, John G. Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski and Jonathan Zittrain.  The
> book will be published in April 2010 as part of the series I co-edit
> for the MIT Press on The Information Revolution and Global Politics.
> If anyone is interested in knowing more or pre-ordering, please see
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/IRGP-series
> .
> 
> Curious thing just happened.  I had put out a stack of flyers about
> the book, as well as another in the series, on the table in the back
> of the room at the session I'm now speaking in on the IG summer school
> program.  I stepped out of the room for a moment, and coming back saw
> three Chinese people standing outside the room conferring.  Walked
> back into the room and someone had removed all the flyers from the
> table.  I have to presume they are going around the building doing this.
> 
> There are also flyers at the IGP booth if anyone here here wants one.
> At least there were, not sure about now.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> On Nov 16, 2009, at 11:11 AM, Shahzad Ahmad wrote:
> 
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> 
>> Just to keep the facts straight... the Network of the Soros
>> Foundation or
>> Open Society Institute) has nothing to do with ONI Asia or this
>> event. ONI
>> Asia is an independent network of researchers supported by Toronto
>> University and Harvard in the US.
>> 
>> best wishes and regards
>> Shahzad
>> 
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Fouad Bajwa" <fouadbajwa at gmail.com>
>> To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>; "Karl Auerbach" <karl at cavebear.com>
>> Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 2:05 PM
>> Subject: Re: [governance] What happened?
>> 
>> 
>> I am at the IGF and heard about this issue that during the ONI open
>> network initiative (of the network of the Soros Foundation/Open
>> Society Institute) workshop in the morning. The issue arose when the
>> meeting was disrupted by UN officials who demanded removal of a poster
>> that mentioned Internet firewalls in China.. Here is the post by the
>> Pakistani Civil Society at the IGF:
>> 
>> IGF 2009 event rattled by UN Security Office
>> "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 at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for
>> International Studies and one of ONI's principal investigators.
>> By Rabia Garib
>> 16 Nov 2009
>> 
>> KARACHI, 15 NOVEMBER 2009 - An anti-censorship group holding an event
>> Sunday at the United Nations-sponsored Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
>> in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, was disrupted by UN officials who demanded
>> removal of a poster that mentioned Internet firewalls in China.
>> 
>> According to a Pakistani delegate, Shahzad Ahmed of Bytesforall.net, a
>> reception hosted by Open Net Initiative (ONI) was rattled by IGF
>> security, who objected to a poster advertising "Access Controlled", a
>> book being introduced at the 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," Ahmed reported.
>> 
>> The poster promoting ONI's forthcoming book, "Access Controlled" was
>> removed by the IGF's organizers because a sentence in the poster
>> apparently violated UN 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 at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for
>> International Studies and one of ONI's principal investigators.
>> 
>> Deibert, one of the organizers of the reception, said he will file a
>> complaint against the censorship of the 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.
>> 
>> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 4:11 AM, Karl Auerbach <karl at cavebear.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> News is just filtering out about the teardown of a book poster at
>>> the IGF
>>> because it violated some UN rule about China.
>>> 
>>> We've seen videos of the teardown of the sign but there's not much
>>> news
>>> out
>>> here about the why except that it was done by UN security because a
>>> sentence
>>> violated some rule or another.
>>> 
>>> Anyone have more details?
>>> 
>>> --karl--
>>> 
>>> ____________________________________________________________
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>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Regards.
>> --------------------------
>> Fouad Bajwa
>> Advisor & Researcher
>> ICT4D & Internet Governance
>> Member Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF)
>> Member Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC)
>> My Blog: Internet's Governance
>> http://internetsgovernance.blogspot.com/
>> Follow my Tweets:
>> http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa
>> MAG Interview:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATVDW1tDZzA
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> 
> ***********************************************************
> William J. Drake
> Senior Associate
> Centre for International Governance
> Graduate Institute of International and
>   Development Studies
> Geneva, Switzerland
> william.drake at graduateinstitute.ch
> www.graduateinstitute.ch/cig/drake.html
> ***********************************************************
> 
> 
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