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WSIS? We Seize!

IMC Sheffield | 27.11.2003 13:00 | WSIS 2003 | Sheffield

WSIS HubThe World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a full United Nations Summit to be held 10-12 December 2003 in Geneva with a second meeting in Tunis in 2005. [Official Website]

Community media and other civil society organisations are organising a number of events to run alongside and contra to the WSIS which, they believe, fails to promote media diversity or engage with the question of fair access to the Information Society.

The Summit's stated objective is to address the inequalities that will arise as the world changes from an industrial to information-based society. Information is a powerful tool for economic and social development and the WSIS was announced as a platform for the UN, governments, the private sector along with civil society groups to contribute to bridging digital and knowledge divisions.

However the Civil Society grouping including many progressive electronic networks have severly criticised the process for failing to agree on a comittment to basic human right standards (most prominent in this case being the freedom of expression), as well as failing to properly include a development agenda and address issues such as media concentration, support for community media, internet governance, free software, and security. The stage is now set for a confrontation as the movement for media democracy and communication rights continues to gain pace.

Links: UN Summit Information Society | Prepcom Reports | WSIS? We Seize! | Polymedia Lab | WFCR | Indymedia Switzerland


A series of preparatory committees (PrepComs), planning for the WSIS have already taken place, but for civil society groups in particular, it has emerged from these PrepComs that the idea of the WSIS engaging in a wide range of information and communication issues has effectively been shattered. An agenda has surfaced that is plainly concerned with telecommunication and Internet issues relating to the vested interests of corporate multinationals.

Community media and other civil society organisations have expressed the fear that broader communication and media concerns - essential features of any 'Information Society' - and human and communication rights that are central to its core have on the whole been sidelined. A press release from Amarc states that the outcome of PrepCom-3 held in September gives priority to the infrastructure for Internet connectivity whilst failing to address the fundamental barriers of electricity supply, literacy and equipment costs which will exclude the world’s poorest people.

The Prepcom-3 talks basically broke down as governmental representatives, along with representatives from the private and civil sectors failed to agree on the wording of a Declaration of Principles and an Action Plan, to be signed at the WSIS in December. Both documents are shot through with contentious issues such as who will finance the development of the 'Information Society', who will govern the Internet, intellectual property rights, open-source software and freedom of expression. Criticism of the Declaration of Principles includes the observation that the word 'democracy' is only mentioned once, and then only at the very end of the document. And further, that the most fundamental human right in terms of empowering the online citizen, the right to associate and by extension to communicate, is not even mentioned at all; is not freedom of expression meaningless without an audience, or in this case an 'online community' and two-way exchange?

Complaints have also been lodged against the United Nations that the WSIS is not open to all civil society organisations. The press freedom group Reporters Sans Frontières have been banned from attending the WSIS after finding themselves suspended from the UN Commission for Human Rights for vigorously protesting against the composition of the Commission. The group Human Rights in China has also been denied accreditation to the WSIS and so will also not be able to attend. A further 'intersessional' meeting took place in a last ditch effort to build consensus between participants before the WSIS proper in December.

As the forthcoming Summit looks set to descend into a farce - Richard Stallman, the free software advocate, said at a recent conference: The best thing that can happen with the WSIS is to break down - civil society groups are organising a vigorous counter strategy to ensure that their voice, and that of community media, gets heard.

The World Forum on Communication Rights, an independent civil-society led initiative, is a parallel conference to WSIS held again in Geneva on 11th December in order to:

  • demonstrate and document the importance of communication rights for people and communities in an emerging information society
  • contribute to the emergence and understanding of a coherent concept of communication rights
  • generate cooperation in promoting the concept, recognition and realisation of communication rights

The Forum will specifically focus on the following four themes so as to cover items that have not been adequately dealt with in the WSIS agenda:

  1. Communication and Poverty: how poverty has 'disappeared' from media, the role of communication in development, and community-led access in poor areas.
  2. Communication, Conflict and Peace: drawing on experience and trends in media in the context of conflict - before, during and after; the militarisation of ICTs; censorship and surveillance.
  3. Communication, Copyright, Patents and Trade: the impact of current and proposed regional and global trade agreements on media and culture; global consolidation of corporate media; copyright restrictions and alternatives; open source and free software.
  4. Communication and Human Rights: its role not only in freedom of expression and privacy, but in all human rights, from the right to a fair trial and freedom of movement, to freedom of assembly and workers' rights, together with democratic governance.

Among the outputs of the World Forum on Communication Rights will be a published Guide to Communication Rights and the launch of a Charter on Communication Rights.

Another group, Geneva-03, has been discussing how to intervene in, outside of, counter to, or as an alternative to the agenda and organisation of the WSIS. Geneva-03 sees the whole Summit as a smokescreen: Although it talks about the digital divide, knowledge dissemination, social interaction, political engagement, media, education, and health, this language is used to mystify the continuing use of information to protect and advance the interests of global capital.

Geneva-03 has planned a number of activities in reaction to the corporate sponsored UN agenda:

  • 'WSIS? We Seize' - a strategic convention before the UN summit in Geneva, comprising discussions, panels and presentations.
  • A polymedia lab to share tools, skills, experiences, and knowledge.
  • A three-day webcast that will follow the rotation of the earth, streaming independent media activism and community media projects from across the globe.

As part of 'WSIS? We Seize', Geneva-03 will invite ICT workers from all overthe world including Asian call centre workers and Korean trade unionists, amongst others. Panels will address the growing problem of 'e-waste' and redundant technology. The environmental impact of the mining of coltane, used in the production of micro-chips, from the Congo will also be examined. Groups such as the 'consumer guerilla brigade' Yo Mango have also been invited to Geneva to stage their theatrical subversions. The psychogeographers of the Bureau d'Etudes at the 'Université Tangente' will be undertaking a sophisticated mapping exercise of Geneva to illustrate and expose the complex interplay of the forces of power and influence around the WSIS.



Hacker groups and free software practitioners such as the Metabolic BioHackLab from Spain and the Autistici from Italy will engage in the polymedia lab to create free and autonomous technical spaces in which to exchange knowledge and skills. The Linux Professional Institute will hold an open source software workshop and certification exam lab at the WSIS and it is their intention to put a Linux 'live' CD in the hands of every WSIS delegate.

Geneva-03 calls on the entire community media sector to take part in 'WSIS? We Seize' to join their mailing list and contribute ideas, to get involved in the three-day webcast and create some interesting content, as well as participating in the panels and debates either in person or via the Internet. Our sector has a duty to itself and to others to make sure at the world’s very first summit on the Information Society that the global corporate interests realise that we do count and that one day, we’ll seize!

IMC Sheffield
- e-mail: sheffield@indymedia.org

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Additional infos

01.12.2003 16:58

There will be several radio initiatives webstreaming from geneva, some from inside the civil society grouping, broadcasting from the Palexpo centre as part of the ICT4all exhibition, others from outside of the official facilities. URLs up soon...

Below are a few extra references:

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Association for Progressive Communications (APC) WSIS Info
(includes recommended reading for advocates)
 http://www.apc.org/english/wsis/

Detailed coverage in Spanish comes from APC's Latin America and Caribbean ICT Policy Monitor site
 http://lac.derechos.apc.org/wsis

==================================

Since July 2003, the WFCN publishes Mosaic, a newsletter presenting an overview of the discussions on the information society, especially on the WSIS process. The objective is to present different cultural and linguistic (English, French and Spanish) perspectives using about a dozen of civil society discussion lists and websites.

This 3rd issue covers the WSIS PrepCom
 http://www.globalcn.org/en/article.ntd?id=1825&sort=1.25

CONTENTS:

1. Editorial: A Rear-Guard Battle?
2. Commentary on Civil Society Participation
3. Content and Themes
3.1 General Overview
3.2 Communication Rights
3.3 Human Rights
3.4 From Internet Governance to Global ICT Governance
3.5 Intellectual Property
3.6 Digital Solidarity Fund
3.7 Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
3.8 Women and ICTs, or the Case of the Missing Article
4. From Words to Action
4.1 Forum on Communication Rights
4.2 European Social Forum
4.3 « WSIS? We Seize! » Initiative

See Other Mosaic Issues:
 http://www.globalcn.org/en/accueil.ntd?sort=1.25

Main WSIS Page:
 http://www.globalcn.org/en/accueil.ntd?sort=1.10

=================================

WSIS News from IPSnews:

Stories in English and French from the IPS news agency and Infosud agence de presse about media, communication and technology. During the WSIS this website will carry daily, electronic versions of the TerraViva Conference newspaper from Geneva.

 http://www.ipsnews.net/focus/tv_society/index.asp

=================================

Also worth keeping an eye on OneWorld.net's Information & media section for reports in multiple languages:
 http://www.oneworld.net/article/archive/72/

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imc london bod


Another good reference

02.12.2003 15:08


 http://www.worldsummit2003.org is well recommended:

Background information and latest news on the WSIS process and on the issues and debates around the summit. It was set up by the Heinrich Boell Foundation in February 2003 and is part of the efforts of the Foundation to spread knowledge and information about the summit, both in Germany and internationally. The site editors are members of the German WSIS Civil Society Coordinating Group

German language site:
 http://www.worldsummit2003.de

info


two good published works

02.12.2003 20:12

Written some time ago this is a good background and issue article -
Metamute article :: M26 :: 4.0 7.03
Unzipping the World Summit on the Information Society
by Alan Toner
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/07/274377.html

================================

Heinrich Böll Foundation:
"Visions in Process - World Summit on the Information Society Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005".

International experts and insiders track the development of the summit declaration language and compare it with civil society proposals and submissions.

Contents

5 Preface
7 The Charter of Civil Rights for a Sustainable Knowledge Society – A Vision with
Practical Consequences
9A Human Rights Perspective on the Word Summit on the Information Society
15 WSIS:The Industry View
19 Gender and the WSIS Process:War of the Words
24 On the Question of Financing at the World Summit on the Information Society
31 How Public is the Public Domain?
35 Fighting Intellectual Poverty:Who Owns and Controls the Information
Societies?
39 Internet Governance :ICANN vs ITU?
43 National Security or Civil Liberties?WSIS Debate on Security Issues in Deadlock
50 Grassroots Communication for a People-Centered Information Society:Commu-
nity Media is at the Centre of Civil Society Efforts at the WSIS
54 Why are Communication Rights so Controversial?
59 Annex:Biographies /Civil Society Essential Benchmarks for WSIS

Download (pdf)
 http://www.worldsummit2003.de/download_de/Vision_in_process.pdf

info


important releases re wsis

05.12.2003 00:17



Reporters Without Border challenges 14 major Internet and computer firms about their activity in China
3 December 2003
 http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8668

extra info from theregsiter.co.uk:

No one from Cisco, Intel or Yahoo! was available for comment at the time of writing.
Of course, this isn't the first time that the IT industry has been fingered for its involvement in China.
A year ago, Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems, among others, were accused of aiding and abetting human rights violations in China by Amnesty International.
The human rights watchdog argued that China depends on the technological expertise and investment of foreign companies that provide technology which is used to restrict fundamental freedoms.
Amnesty listed how the Chinese authorities have "introduced scores of regulations, closed Internet cafes, blocked e-mails, search engines, foreign news and politically-sensitive websites, and recently introduced a filtering system for web searches on a list of prohibited key words and terms".

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10 November 2003
IFJ Condemns UN 'Blunder' That Keeps Freelancers out of World Summit on Information

The International Federation of Journalists today condemned the restrictive conditions for accreditation imposed on freelancers aiming to report on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Freelance journalists not attached to a particular news outlet are being barred from the summit, says the IFJ, because summit organizers insist that all journalists have to prove that they are on assignment from a specific news organization.

----------------

World Press Freedom Committee
Summit Poses Threat to Internet Press Freedom
 http://www.wpfc.org/index.jsp?page=Internet%20Press%20Freedom2
The WPFC is a coordination group of national and international news media organizations. It includes as affiliates 44 journalistic organizations on six continents.

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