Re: [hr-wsis] Please sign-on - Letter to OHCHR

[Bill McIver <mciver@albany.edu>]

Meryem,

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) http://www.cpsr.org
will sign under the conditions you give below.


Thanks,

WJM

Meryem Marzouki wrote:

> Please sign-on the letter to the OHCHR, now that we all agreed that:
> 1/ The letter would be sent to Deputy High Commission
> 2/ The sentence "Like all scientific innovations, information 
> communications technologies in themselves are value-neutral" would be 
> removed
> 3/ The reference to repression would be added, following the remark by 
> Christine (OMCT) which nobody seemed to disagree with
>
> In case we gathered enough signatures from the Hr caucus members, I 
> propose that this letter be presented as a common initiative from the 
> WFM and the HR caucus.
>
> Members of the HR caucus who already signed:
> - CMIC
> - Danish Institute for Human Rights
> - Digital Rights Denmark
> - IRIS
> - OMCT
>
> Please other members tell us if your organization would sign, and 
> please gather other organizations signatures by, let's say, June 12.
> I'll circulate the text of this letter to the WSIS plenary list, and 
> to other organizations. Please also try to get other signatures with 
> name of the org, web site if any, contact person name and email.
>
> Final text of the letter:
> June 2003
>
> Bertrand Ramcharan
> Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
> United Nations
> Geneva, Switzerland
>
> RE: Human Rights and the World Summit on the Information Society
>
>
> Your Excellency Mr. Bertrand Ramchara:
>
> The under-signed civil society organizations strongly encourage your 
> active participation in the preparatory committee and summit meeting 
> of the World Summit on the Information Society, taking place in 
> September and December 2003, respectively.  Human rights are an 
> essential requirement of the Information Society, as elaborated in the 
> draft declaration of the WSIS (WSIS/PCIP/DT/1-E):
>
> 10. The essential requirements for the development of an equitable 
> Information Society include: The respect for all internationally 
> recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Notably the right to 
> freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold 
> opinions without interference and seek to, receive and impart 
> information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers in 
> accordance with article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human 
> Rights and to unhindered access by individuals to communication media 
> and information sources…
>
> As the United Nations highest human rights official, your good offices 
> are needed to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is 
> comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions 
> adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights 
> language developed through the various UN world summits and conferences.
>
> Civil society organizations view ICTs as having both tremendous 
> applications that enhance human rights, such as through the rapid 
> dissemination of action alerts and instant access to human rights 
> information, and disturbing capacities to greatly diminish human 
> rights, such as by providing governments with means enabling intrusive 
> surveillance and monitoring and therefore, repression.
>
> Only through the active participation of governments, civil society, 
> and international human rights institutions such as your Office can 
> these ICTs be best harnessed to maximize the protection of human 
> rights worldwide.
>
> We thank you for your consideration of this request and look forward 
> to seeing you in September.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> [under-signed NGOs]
>
>
> -- 
> Working List of the WSIS Human Rights Caucus
> Web site : http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis
> Public Archives: http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/list
> To post a message to the list, send an email to: hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org
> To subscribe/unsubscribe, send an email to: Meryem.Marzouki@iris.sgdg.org
>

-- 

Bill McIver
Assistant Professor
School of Information Science and Policy
University at Albany, State University of New York
Albany, New York 12222
USA

e-mail: mciver@albany.edu
URL: http://www.albany.edu/~mciver