Shirin Ebadi - Letters to Y. Utsumi and J. Karklins

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Dear all,

Please find hereafter the content of the letter sent to Mr Utsumi and 
to Amb. Karklins, on behalf of the HR caucus. Feel free to forward this 
letter to your government delegation, asking for support and lobbying. 
Please also keep sending me (marzouki@ras.eu.org) your support as 
caucus, network coalition, NGO, or individual.

We will certainly need strong lobbying effort to have Shirin Ebadi 
accepted to speak at the opening ceremony. Of course, the opening would 
be the only speaking slot to reasonably consider for a Nobel Prize 
winner.
I've already said that it would be a strong symbol to have Shirin Ebadi 
speaking. It would be an equally strong symbol to have her refused.

Again, I would like to thank Renata Bloem and Roberto Bissio for their 
kind attitude.

Best regards,
Meryem Marzouki
HR caucus co-chair
=======
Paris, October 12, 2005

Mr. Yoshio Utsumi
Secretary-General
World Summit on the Information Society

Re: Human Rights Caucus nomination of Shirin Ebadi for WSIS opening 
ceremony

Dear Mr. Utsumi,

The WSIS Civil Society Human Rights Caucus would like to submit to your 
consideration the proposal to have Ms. Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Peace Nobel 
Prize winner, as civil society speaker for the WSIS opening ceremony in 
Tunis.

Ms. Ebadi has welcomed this nomination from the Human Rights Caucus, 
and has committed to be present in Tunis to speak at the Summit opening 
ceremony, would she receive your agreement.

As soon as it received today Ms. Ebadi’s confirmation of availability 
and willingness to accept the offer, the Human Rights Caucus has 
started collecting support to Ms. Ebadi’s nomination among other civil 
society entities participating to the WSIS process. The list of these 
supports will be forwarded to you soon. We would also like to mention 
that Ms. Renata Bloem and Mr. Roberto Bissio, who both were on the list 
recommended to you, have announced that they would be happy to step 
aside to allow Ms. Ebadi be the civil society speaker proposed for the 
opening ceremony.

We are confident that you will share our conviction that having Ms. 
Shirin Ebadi selected as civil society speaker at WSIS opening ceremony 
would be the strongest symbol that the information society should be 
based on human rights and social justice foundations. This is exactly 
the issue Ms. Ebadi would like to address at the WSIS opening ceremony.

Sincerely,

Meryem Marzouki
Human Rights Caucus Co-chair
and
President, IRIS - Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire
[details]

Copies:
This letter is also being sent to Ambassador Janis Karklins, President 
of the WSIS process