[WSIS CS-Plenary] Please sign-on - Letter to OHCHR

[Sacha Jotisalikorn]

Hi Meryem,

Please add our endorsement:

Name of org: Forum-Asia
Contact person: Sacha Jotisalikorn
email: sacha at forumasia.org
website: forumasia.org

On Thursday, June 5, 2003, at 03:38 PM, Meryem Marzouki wrote:

> [This is a call for signatures by NGOs]
>
> Hi all,
>
> Below you will find a letter to the Deputy High Commissioner for Human 
> Rights, Bertrand Ramcharan, to ask him to attend next PrepCom of the 
> World Summit on the Information society (WSIS) and the Summit itself, 
> in order "to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is 
> comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions 
> adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights 
> language developed through the various UN world summits and 
> conferences.", as written in the letter.
>
> This letter is an initiative from Rik Panganiban from the World 
> Federalist Movement, who submitted the proposal to the WSIS Human 
> Rights caucus, coordinated by Rikke Frank Jorgensen from the Danish 
> Institute for Human Rights and myself as IRIS representative (see the 
> HR caucus website at:
> http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis).
>
> After some modifications from HR caucus members, the final text of the 
> letter has been agreed (see below).
> Now we would like to gather as much signatures from organizations as 
> possible, so that the letter can be seen as a strong demand.
>
> You are then asked to send signatures before the deadline of June 12. 
> Please send them directly to me (marzouki at ras.eu.org), I'll post the 
> final list here.
> Please provide: name of the org, web site if any, contact person name 
> and email.
>
> You don't need to be accredited to the Summit for that, not to have 
> taken an active part in its process till now.
>
> Thanks you in advance,
> Meryem Marzouki
> HR caucus co-coordinator
> =======
> Final text of the letter:
> June 2003
>
> Bertrand Ramcharan
> Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights
> United Nations
> Geneva, Switzerland
>
> RE: Human Rights and the World Summit on the Information Society
>
>
> Your Excellency Mr. Bertrand Ramcharan:
>
> The under-signed civil society organizations strongly encourage your 
> active participation in the preparatory committee and summit meeting 
> of the World Summit on the Information Society, taking place in 
> September and December 2003, respectively.  Human rights are an 
> essential requirement of the Information Society, as elaborated in the 
> draft declaration of the WSIS (WSIS/PCIP/DT/1-E):
>
> 10. The essential requirements for the development of an equitable 
> Information Society include: The respect for all internationally 
> recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Notably the right to 
> freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold 
> opinions without interference and seek to, receive and impart 
> information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers in 
> accordance with article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human 
> Rights and to unhindered access by individuals to communication media 
> and information sources…
>
> As the United Nations highest human rights official, your good offices 
> are needed to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is 
> comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions 
> adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights 
> language developed through the various UN world summits and 
> conferences.
>
> Civil society organizations view ICTs as having both tremendous 
> applications that enhance human rights, such as through the rapid 
> dissemination of action alerts and instant access to human rights 
> information, and disturbing capacities to greatly diminish human 
> rights, such as by providing governments with means enabling intrusive 
> surveillance and monitoring and therefore, repression.
>
> Only through the active participation of governments, civil society, 
> and international human rights institutions such as your Office can 
> these ICTs be best harnessed to maximize the protection of human 
> rights worldwide.
>
> We hope the Office of the High Commissioner will become involved in 
> this event and we look forward to our ongoing collaboration in 
> ensuring that the World Summit on the Information Society has a strong 
> human rights focus. In particular we are hoping that you personally 
> will be able to attend the Third Prep Com, to take place in Geneva in 
> September 15-27, 2003, and we look forward to meeting with you at that 
> time. We also hope that the Office of the High Commissioner will be 
> prominent in the deliberations of the Summit in December, and that we 
> will harness the potential of information technology to serve the 
> cause of human rights to the Summit in Tunisia and beyond.
>
> We look forward to your reply.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> [under-signed NGOs. 15 till now]
>
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