[Chapter-delegates] Pacific Islands Regional Advisor banned from major World IT Meeting

[Franck Martin]

PICISOC MEDIA RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pacific Islands Regional Advisor banned from major World IT Meeting

At a preliminary meeting in Geneva preparing for the World Summit on
the Information Society (WSIS) meeting next month, the Pacific
Islands Regional Advisor on this major global initiative was last
week excluded from observing proceedings.

"Two incidents this week have dampened spirit of civil society and
private sector representatives," the advisor, Ms 'Apisake Soakai,
told members of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society
(PICISOC) in an e-mail from Geneva last Tuesday.

"On Monday morning before session started members from the private
sector were told to leave the room. On Tuesday afternoon civil
society representatives were also told to leave the room because the
negotiation session was a private meeting only for government
delegations," Ms Soakai said.

"These incidents were embarrasing, humiliating and discouraging for
individuals concerned, not to mention the organisation they
represented," Ms Soaki said.

PICISOC explained that sending Ms Sokai to represent the Region at a
lead-up meeting to the major WSIS summit was a very effective use of
scarce finances as her reports were being widely circulated and
studied by governments, the developing Pacific IT industry, and many
NGOs.

Her exclusion denied the Pacific valuable information needed to
prepare for the looming WSIS summit in Tunis in November, 2005.

PICISOC Chair Rajnesh Singh said that excluding Ms Sokai and other
civil society representatives, particularly those from developing
regions, from WSIS meetings was outrageous and a denial of the
principles of transparency and good governance the WSIS process is
supposed to facilitate.

"The WSIS and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the
organiser, has claimed multi-stakeholder approach and transparency,
but who are we kidding?" Mr Singh said.

"We are not requesting to be able intervene at all sessions but at
least to be able to know what is happening in a free and transparent
process so that government delegations are fully briefed for the WSIS
Tunis meeting.

"Is this the model that is been created for the 'Internet Forum' that
the ITU through the WSIS process is trying desperately to promote?"
Mr Singh said.

"The Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (PICISOC)
certainly do not support any model where openness, transparency and
good governance is not entrenched in its charter," Mr Singh said.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT -

Rajnesh Singh, PICISOC Chairman, rajnesh.singh at gmail.com 
<mailto:rajnesh.singh at gmail.com>

Franck Martin, PICISOC Vice Chairman, franck.martin at gmail.com 
<mailto:franck.martin at gmail.com>
skype.com <http://skype.com>: franckhlmartin

BACKGROUND -

About PICISOC
PICISOC is an organisation encompassing 22 Pacific Islands Countries
and Territories with a goal to promote "Internet for Everyone". As
such, the board reflects this philosophy with people from 5 different
countries and from the government and private sector.

PICISOC has over 350 individual members in the Pacific Islands
representing also the diversity of this geographical area.

PICISOC web site is located at http://www.picisoc.org and is
affiliated to the Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) which is the
organisation in charge of the Public Internet Registry (.org domain
names), which also provides support and a legal framework to the
Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org), the
organisation in charge of making open Internet Standards.