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

[Fred Baker]

Thanks for the heads-up. The fact is that this has been happening to  
all of our non-governmental participants, including ISOC HQ. That  
doesn't make it less of a problem, but it means that there are very  
fundamental issues here.

I like and support Mr Singh's comment in the closing paragraph.  
Fundamentally, that's why ISOC is not convinced that a governmental  
oversight function (US or otherwise) is a great idea. The model being  
displayed in WSIS smells like Mercantilism, not openness.

On Nov 1, 2005, at 9:11 PM, Franck Martin wrote:

> 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.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chapter-delegates mailing list
> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates

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