[WSIS CS-Plenary] Opening ceremony speaker

[Ronald Koven]

Dear All --

It seems to me that the kind of person that civil society should want to
represent it for a 5-minute keynote speech is someone who will restate the
basic freedom of expression principles upon which the Information Society
should be based. It is not enuf time to get into small-bore technology
issues, but it is the perfect platform from which to remind summiteers of
the basic free speech/press freedom commitments, from which they should not
backtrack -- the central danger now facing us in the WSIS preparations.

Therefore, it should be someone with the kind of world stature and name
recognition that summiteers can ignore only at their peril. Nor should it
be someone to whom a segment of world civil society could dictate what he
or she should be saying.

Some thoughts of names that might be considered:

Nelson Mandela

J.M. Coetze (2-time Booker Prize winner, who has written very tellingly
about censorship)

Salman Rushdie

Vaclav Havel

Adam Michnik (Editor and founder of the leading Polish daily newspaper
Gazeta Wyborcza and major figure in the Solidarity movement)

Umberto Eco

George Soros

Vargas Llosa (major Latin American (Peruvian) writer who has also written
very well about free speech issues)

Horacio Verbitsky (leading Argentine editor and free speech advocate,
responsible for forcing Argentina to revoke its insult laws)

Someone like the above would make sure that civil society is not perceived
as sinking into parochialism. 

Best,

Rony Koven
World Press Freedom Committee