[governance] Re: Censorship of postcards at the IGF

Tue Nov 6 03:00:01 EST 2012

Hi,

daring to intervene here... to the best of my knowledge the core troublesome reference is in the reverse of one of the postcards that calls a country a dangerous place.

We have known for long - even in the MAG which is a closed and more relaxed forum - that specific references to countries and certain other entities.

So you may refer to "governments" in general - within some pretty broad bounds - but not one in particular. And there's hardly any way the rules allow to single out a country.

The subtleties of these rules are often more stifling than an invitation to open free speech but they do allow for lots of creative ways to deliver messages - with broader impact.

Yours,

Alejandro Pisanty

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Desde: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] en nombre de Jeremy Malcolm [jeremy at ciroap.org]
Enviado el: martes, 06 de noviembre de 2012 00:39
Hasta: <bestbits at lists.igcaucus.org> Bits; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Asunto: [governance] Re: Censorship of postcards at the IGF

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<mailto: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<mailto: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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