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

[dbronson@ichrdd.ca]

HI there

Rights & Democracy will sign on

It should read (if there is space)
Rights & Democracy (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic
Development), Canada

You can delete the brackets if it is to long, but many people know us by
our old name.

Thanks for all your work on this.

DB

Diana Bronson
Coordinator/Coordonnatrice
Globalization and Human Rights Programme
Programme mondialisation et droits humains
Rights and Democracy/Droits et Démocratie
1001, boul. de Maisonneuve est, Bureau 1100
Montréal, Québec
H2L 4P9
tel:  514 283 6073
fax:  514 283 3792
www.ichrdd.ca
dbronson@ichrdd.ca


                                                                                                           
                      "Frank                                                                               
                      Joergensen,              To:      <hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org>                            
                      Rikke"                   cc:                                                         
                      <rfj@humanrights         Subject: [hr-wsis] Re: Please sign-on - Letter to OHCHR     
                      .dk>                                                                                 
                                                                                                           
                      2003-06-04 04:01                                                                     
                      AM                                                                                   
                      Please respond                                                                       
                      to hr-wsis                                                                           
                                                                                                           
                                                                                                           




hi meryem

its just "digital rights" (not denmark, tho we are based here)

rikke


 -----Original Message-----
 From: Meryem Marzouki [mailto:marzouki@ras.eu.org]
 Sent: Tue 6/3/2003 5:49 PM
 To: hr-wsis@iris.sgdg.org
 Cc: Rik Panganiban
 Subject: [hr-wsis] Please sign-on - Letter to OHCHR



 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]


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