Re: [hr-wsis] FYI - Criticism of Tunisia Not Allowed At UN Meeting

[Rik Panganiban <rikp@earthlink.net>]

Dear colleagues,

I am of the view that this is one of those scenarios that was blown out 
of proportion by the secretariat and the Tunisian government which 
should have just been allowed on the table and it would have quietly 
been received by various governments.  Instead they have made an 
incident of it and they must live with the consequences.

Nevertheless, it is concommitant on us to try and understand by what 
rules we are to abide by in the process. As I understand it, under UN 
rules there may be a restriction on documents that single out a single 
government for criticism.  IF this is the case, then we need to know if 
it is acceptable to submit documents that criticize 5 governments, or 
150 governments, etc.

As a matter of fairness and balance, it would be good if our documents 
began with the proviso that many governments have poor records on human 
rights in the information society, and highlight several of them, with 
some attention to regional balance and several aggregious cases.  It is 
my understanding that many of our African colleagues in civil society 
have problems with the singling out of one African country, which need 
to be taken into account, particularly if a majority of members of the 
caucus come from Western countries.

Regards,

Rik Panganiban

On Feb 25, 2005, at 4:51 AM, Meryem Marzouki wrote:

> Criticism of Tunisia Not Allowed At UN Meeting
> http://allafrica.com/stories/200502240550.html
>
> Highway Africa News Agency  (Grahamstown)
>
>  February 24, 2005
> Posted to the web February 24, 2005
> Angella Nabwowe
>   Geneva
>
> The Secretariat of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) 
> will not allow civil society to distribute a report at the PrepCom 2 
> meeting currently taking place in Geneva, Switzerland.
>
> The sixty page report, compiled by the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring group, 
> is critical of human rights abuses in Tunisia, the country designated 
> to host the second phase of WSIS in November this year. The report 
> details the imprisonment of individuals, the blocking of news and 
> information websites, police surveillance of emails and internet 
> cafes, lack of pluralism and media censorship.
>
> IFEX is an international consortium of media organisations that 
> campaign for the freedom of expression and against human rights 
> abuses.
>
> During a media caucus meeting this evening, Steve Buckley, world 
> president of the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC) 
> informed stakeholders that the WSIS secretariat had banned them from 
> distributing the document in any meetings or rooms except the one 
> assigned for the civil society plenary.
>
> "They want us to sign a statement saying that we shall not distribute 
> the report in any of the desginated conference venues except civil 
> society. They maintain IFEX is not accredited, but IFEX is not an 
> organisation -- it is a consortium of organisations accredited by the 
> WSIS" Buckley reported.
>
> Buckley views the banning as double standards because the response 
> from the Tunisian pro-government delegation criticising the IFEX 
> report is being circulated as an official document at the conference.
>
> "This is a delaying move. If we don't get a response from the 
> secretariat by tomorrow, we shall be left with no choice but to give 
> the WSIS secretariat a deadline to have the report distributed because 
> it was submitted to them with a covering letter with the five 
> organisations that compiled the report and are accredited by WSIS".
>
> He says that delaying the distribution of the report is typical of the 
> Tunisian censorship techniques.
>
> According to Article 13 of the Tunisian press code, a declaration must 
> be lodged with the ministry of the interior before the publication of 
> any periodical. In exchange, the ministry must hand out a "récépissé" 
> (receipt). The declaration must include: The title of the periodical, 
> the details of the publisher, the details of the printer, the 
> language(s) in which it is drafted. By virtue of Article 14, before 
> the printing of any periodical, the printer requires the receipt 
> delivered by the ministry of the interior. In practice the receipt is 
> almost never issued, thus preventing the creation of a certain number 
> of periodicals in Tunisia.
>
> Mark Bench, executive director WPFC refers to the situation as 
> government censorship made possible by the United Nations. "I 
> understand there was a rule at UN that if a government wishes to block 
> any communication of an NGO, they may do so because who are we? 
> However, coming from a country where one can say whatever they want, 
> because this is guaranteed in the constitution, we find that this is 
> government censorship here at the UN. We are accredited, why can we 
> not say what we want to?"
>
> Luckson Chipare, regional director of the Media Institute of Southern 
> Africa (MISA) who presented the IFEX report to the conference on 
> yesterday, says "We are registered to be here, when we were printing 
> the report they didn't inform us of a second decision of whether or 
> not to have the report circulated."
>
> --
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