---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Ralf & Rik's list of "the Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly" in Tunis From: "Rik Panganiban" <rikp@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, November 29, 2005 0:45
To: plenary@wsis-cs.org
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Dear Friends,
Ralf and I wrote up a piece in December 2003 about the best and worst
parts of the Geneva WSIS. We decided to do the same for the Tunis WSIS.
You can find the text of our article below, and also at
http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/840.htm
and http://rikomatic.com/blogomatic
(Note that all views and opinions are those of the authors and do no
purport to represent the views or opinions of any organizations that
they are associated with. If there are any errors of fact it's
probably Rik's fault since he was too tired to fact-check. And errors of
grammar are probably Ralf's fault since English is not his native
language.)
Enjoy!
Ralf and Rik
=================================================The Good, the Bad, and
the Ugly, Part II: Rik and Ralf$BCT(B Take on the WSIS
November 2005
By Ralf Bendrath and Rik Panganiban
In December 2003, we put together a listing of the high and low
points from the Geneva World Summit on the Information Society, which we
called $BE)(Bow Was the Summit?” In that same spirit, we submit to you our
very personal take on the best and worst of the Tunis WSIS.
The Good
• Speaker Selection: This time around, civil society through their own
self-organizing mechanisms selected nearly all of the 35
individuals who spoke at the official WSIS plenaries, roundtables and
high level panels.
• Ms. Shirin Ebadi: In a very last minute effort, the Human Rights
Caucus managed to put together an impressive campaign to get Ms. Shirin
Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Iranian human rights
activist, selected to speak as the civil society speaker at the opening
ceremony of the WSIS. As anticipated, she pulled no punches and
delivered a very strong statement in support of basic human rights and
social justice.
• Internet Access: Unlike Geneva, the ITU managed to get fairly
stable, robust, and free (as in beer) wireless internet throughout the
Kram convention centre. For those laptop owners in need of very fast
connections, there were also lots of LAN cable plugs in the civil
society offices. A not-so-secret SMTP server even allowed folks to send
out mail. And no web filtering was reported on the summit premises.
• Overpasses: In Geneva, we had a heck of a time allocating and
distributing these $BEP(Bverpasses” so people could attend the opening
ceremony and plenaries of the WSIS. This time around, we had our act
together with an online reservation system, pretty fair allocations of
passes to various caucuses, and possibilities for even newcomers to get
into the conference hall. In the end, as expected, barely anyone
attended the official proceedings after the opening ceremony.
• $BE5(Bhe Third Paradise”: This most beautiful side-event took place in an
old townhouse in the medina, where the Brazilian government had joined
forces with an Italian cultural foundation. They brought
together Mediterranean artists, free software and knowledge workers,
video documentarists and cultural activists for an amazing program
during the whole week. The highlight clearly was Free Software guru
Richard Stallmann singing protest songs and Brazilian cultural
minister Gilberto Gild playing along on the guitar. Cozy atmosphere,
loungy interior and extremely friendly people made this the best evening
chill-out place after the political frenzy at the official summit.
The Bad
• Web Censorship: Various witnesses reported that outside of the summit
area in the Kram Convention Centre, the Tunisian authorities continued
to censor online content deemed dangerous to the regime, such as the
websites of the Tunisian League for Human Rights. Even the Swiss news
site swissinfo.ch was blocked because they covered the Swiss President$BCT(B
opening speech at the WSIS that was clearly
critical of the Tunisian human rights record. The web was not only
filtered in the official summit hotels, but even at the ICT4ALL
exhibition right next to the summit.
• Swiss-level Prices in Africa: Everything about the WSIS was clearly
priced at corporate expense account rates, from the overpriced hotels to
the horrible two euro sandwiches in the cafes. We understand that
several African and Latin American NGOs were not able to attend due to
the high travel, accommodation and cost-of-living expenses.
Noise: The meeting rooms and offices at the summit only had paper or
cloth walls and no ceiling. This again – like in Geneva – created a
constant noise level which made it extremely hard to concentrate on your
work or calmly discuss with others during the many interesting
side-events.
• Toilet Paper: Or lack thereof. No further comment necessary.
The Ugly
• Harassment of the Citizen$BCT(B Summit: Like at many other UN world
conferences, civil society groups had organized several meetings outside
of the official summit. The biggest event was supposed to be the
$BE$(Bitizens’ Summit on the Information Society”, organized together with
independent Tunisian NGOs, others were also planned by e.g. the German
Heinrich B Íl Foundation. The Tunisian authorities repeatedly cancelled
room bookings and blocked access to the buildings.
Therefore, the Citizens’ Summit could not take place, and the German UN
Ambassador could not even get into the Goethe Institute – an
official subsidiary of the German Foreign Office. The Tunisian secret
police mostly showed up in badly-fitting dark suits, refused to give
their names or any written documentation, and used as their standard
answer $BE5(Bhis meeting is illegal. If you want to meet, you can meet at
the summit”.
• Paranoid Security Measures: With the recent Jordanian terrorist
attack, it is perhaps understandable that the Tunisian hosts might be
worried about a security incident. But the seemingly thousands of
security personnel throughout the Kram Centre as well as encircling the
area with their automatic weapons and shotguns seemed extremely
excessive. Participants reported random bag searches by gruff and non-
communicative security personnel. Some participants were even blocked
from entering the Kram center in the evenings, though the summit
negotiations were still going on at the same time, and could only enter
after extended discussions. In the hotels, secret police in
plain-clothes were everywhere in the lobbies and hallways, creating an
atmosphere of constant surveillance.
• Privacy invasions: During the Geneva summit, civil society had
protested the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in the
name badges. The entrance control system again use these badges,
time-stamped the entry of all participants, and stored the data.
Theoretically, this technology could have been used for surveillance of
the movements of all summit participants and for registering who walks
(and talks) with whom. Though the ITU had promised it at
PrepCom3 in September, there was no official privacy policy
available. It again is unclear what happened to the data afterwards, and
if the host country authorities got access to it.