[governance] Internet Shutdown: An IGC Statement to the ISOC Cameroon Chapter?

[Arsène Tungali]

Dear colleagues,

Starting a new thread.

I would like to thank everyone for raising your concern about what's going
on in Cameroon which is just another country added to the list of African
countries that have experienced Internet shutdown. I am from the DRC and we
have experienced this more than 3 times and I am in the best position to
highly condem this new form of oppression.

I would also like to thank everyone who have expressed their concern over
what Mr. Janvier had to say about the shutdown in his country, where he
volunteerly serve as ISOC Cameroon President. I join you all and condemn
his position on this, which I can assure you, is his own position, not
shared by his other colleagues at theISOC Chapter. Proof is he reacted to
his other colleague who had a different view and who was making an appeal,
asking for more coverage and action regarding what's going on in his
country.

For your information, ISOC has issued a statement
<http://www.internetsociety.org/lets-keep-internet-everyone?utm_content=bufferc442c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
condemning the shutdown in Cameroon as well as in other countries. This
show that ISOC, as an organization, does not support shutdowns but rather
condem it firmly (as we all know).

And, on a different mailing list, Mr. Nicolas Seidler
<https://www.internetsociety.org/who-we-are/people/mr-nicolas-seidler>, who
is Senior Policy Advisor for ISOC said the following:

We felt it was time to formally express our long-standing concerns on such
measures, in the context of the Cameroon situation and in view of others to
come up in the future. We are also supporting and giving visibility to
efforts from Access and members of the Keep it on campaign on our social
media channels.

And he reacted on Mr. Janvier's stance and ONLY had this to say:
Finally, we have an ISOC Chapter in Cameroon, as in many other parts of the
worlds. While not all members of Chapters share the same view (a Chapter is
made of local volunteers, not staff), there are some who want to act and
we’ll make sure to direct them to Deji, Julie and others involved in the
advocacy effort.

>From the above, we understand that it was a personal point of view from Mr.
Janvier which, as most of our colleagues said here, is completely wrong. I
do personally believe that when a single person is restricted access, this
should be raised and condemned. In Cameroon, we have 2 regions affected and
this is terrible.



*Now, coming back to the discussion on this list regarding a statement, I
would like to suggest the following:*
1. We can issue a statement adressed to ISOC Global (to ISOC Executive
Director for example) condemning the public stance taken by ISOC Cameroon
President. May I suggest *Norbert and Mawaki* to make an initial draft
statement and share with us within the next 48 hours (if at all possible)?

2. We then issue a more general statement condemning Internet shutdown
across the world as a civil society coalition because I am sure this is the
new form of opression that Gov are taking (as said by Snowden). It will be
very useful we use the expertise we have here to draft this and circulate
it widely in all networks as a way to condemn the act but also to raise
awareness about the issue (which is still unfamiliar with those who are not
actively involved in these discussions or who have never experienced any
shutdown). *For this, I would like to ask request few volunteers to make an
initial draft statement as well?*

Please do let me know what you think or if there is another approach that
we can all agree on and take action without wassting more time. If you want
to be part of the team of 3 to draft the second statement, please do let us
know on this list within the next 48 hours.

Very best,

Arsene, IGC Co-cooordinator
------------------------
**Arsène Tungali**
Co-Founder & Executive Director, *Rudi international
<http://www.rudiinternational.org>*,
CEO,* Smart Services Sarl <http://www.smart-serv.info>*, *Mabingwa Forum
<http://www.mabingwa-forum.com>*
Tel: +243 993810967
GPG: 523644A0
*Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo*

2015 Mandela Washington Felllow
<http://tungali.blogspot.com/2015/06/selected-for-2015-mandela-washington.html>
(YALI) - ISOC Ambassador (IGF Brazil
<http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/igf-ambassadors-programme/Past-Ambassadors>
& Mexico
<http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/Current-Ambassadors>)
- AFRISIG 2016 <http://afrisig.org/afrisig-2016/class-of-2016/> - Blogger
<http://tungali.blogspot.com> - ICANN Fellow (Los Angeles
<https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-07-18-en> & Marrakech
<https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/marrakech55-attendees-2016-03-14-en>
). AFRINIC Fellow (Mauritius
<http://www.afrinic.net/en/library/news/1907-afrinic-25-fellowship-winners>)*
- *IGFSA Member <http://www.igfsa.org/> - The HuffingtonPost UK
<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/liza-bel/drc_b_8958150.html>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20170130/865d3d67/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