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

[John Ntan]

Hi Meryem,
We the Human Rights Information Network (HURINET), Nigeria 
11, Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
also want to sign on, requesting the participation of the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the WSIS.
Regards,
Ntan.





---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Meryem Marzouki <marzouki at ras.eu.org>
Reply-To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 10:38:00 +0200

>[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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