[governance] No Internet Cafe is allowed to operate within an area closer than 500 meters from any school

Fri Dec 7 13:13:19 EST 2012

Hi,

in Mexico (and I guess many other countries) there is a ruling that no bar (serving alcohol beverages) can be within a certain distance of a school.

The rulings in Cambodia and Azerbaijan tell you that Internet cafés are seen as one more source of evil. I guess evidence of what activities take place in them, by age segments and times of day, and risk-cost-benefit analysis are not exactly objective and not available. Not exactly evidence-based policy-making I fear.

I do remember being struck by the level of activity and enthusiasm in cybercafes in Ghana ten years ago... then connecting the dots to the kids asking you for email addresses in tourist spots and the number "419" forming iteself in my mind's eye.

But, talk about throwing away the baby with the bath water.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

! !! !!! !!!!
NEW PHONE NUMBER - NUEVO NÚMERO DE TELÉFONO

+52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD

+525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO

SMS +525541444475
     Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
UNAM, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico

Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

________________________________
Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de Katy P [katycarvt at gmail.com]
Enviado el: viernes, 07 de diciembre de 2012 11:59
Hasta: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Norbert Klein
Asunto: Re: [governance] No Internet Cafe is allowed to operate within an area closer than 500 meters from any school

Interesting, similar things are going on in Azerbaijan. I blogged about this yesterday.
http://www.katypearce.net/cv/today-in-the-clusterfk-that-is-azerbaijani-internet-policy/

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 9:08 AM, Norbert Klein <nhklein at gmx.net<mailto:nhklein at gmx.net>> wrote:
According to The Cambodia Daily of Friday, 7 December 2012, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has recently issued a decree that says, among other points:

No Internet Cafe is allowed to operate within an area closer than 500 meters from any school.

Given the fact that Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia, has many schools, it has to be assumed that not many regions remain outside of these 500-m-circles around all schools; it also has to be assumed that the majority of already existing Internet Cafes, located in areas of social activities including schools, will have to close down.

This order is issued to supposedly protect young people from bad influences: Violating “traditions”, exposing them to pornography, preventing them from playing prohibited games – but none of these issues has any clear definition. And there is no clarity about the legal authority to interpret and enforce these measures.

The regulation is also to protect users from using drugs, doing money laundering, kidnapping, and human trafficking – all these activities are anyway illegal – their prohibiting is covered by different laws – why include these in the new order on to Internet Cafes?

As for some context: according to a recent survey, there are more than 600,000 Facebook users in Cambodia. Many of them do not have computers, but access the Internet from Internet Cafes.

=

Of course I know that the Dubai conference is dealing with many important issues on a different level. But I find it really surprising that these regulations come forward while – I assume – also Cambodian government representatives are attending the ITU conference in Dubai.

I wanted to share this information – shocking in its general scope, and at the same time extremely vague. I would of course appreciate to receive comments, which I then might share locally.

Norbert Klein
Phnom Penh
Cambodia

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org<mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20121207/15931aa3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t