[governance] Re: Censorship of postcards at the IGF

[Jeremy Malcolm]

So here is the official line.  Questions that this opens up:

1. If the issue was with "random placement" of the postcards, it should be fine to distribute the postcards from any booth that is willing to host them within the IGF Village.  So, can we test that hypothesis?  Donny, can you try that and see what happens?

2. One of the postcards had a specific reference to a country?  There is none that I could see, but maybe it is on the reverse side?

3. Like last time, the official rationalisation seems to differ from what the individual concerned was told at the time.  This in itself is a problem - they are making up the rules as they go along.

I have edited the document on the pad at http://igcaucus.org:9001/p/un-censorship-statement.  I think we have enough information now to finalise the statement soon and start gathering support and disseminating it.

Do we have any press contacts on this list who could attend the IGF official press conference and raise this matter?

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Chengetai Masango <CMASANGO at unog.ch>
> Subject: Re: Censorship of postcards at the IGF
> Date: 6 November 2012 9:56:06 AM GMT+04:00
> To: jeremy at ciroap.org
> 
> Hi Jeremy,
> 
> The main thing about the postcards is that we discourage the random placement of literature across the IGF venue. We have designated places where people or organisations can deposit their materials for distribution or pick up by interested individuals.
> 
> Of the two post cards that I saw, there was no problem with one but the other had a specific reference to a country, as you know there is a standard  UN policy of not  singling out specific entities or people but rather to address the issue. (We hold that it is unfair to single out one entity if the issue is not endemic to that particular entity). A perfunctory check is done to make sure that this is not the case. This is done in an effort to enable free, open and respectful discussion, (which in my view is essential in the IGF).
> 
> One of the UN staff had a polite talk with the gentleman distributing the postcards and he seemed to understand.
> 
> Best regards 
> 
> Chengetai 

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Dr Jeremy Malcolm
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