[WSIS CS-Plenary] a view on the denial of accreditation of Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres

[Wolfgang Kleinwächter]

well done Rik

w

On torsdag, sep 18, 2003, at 12:21 Europe/Copenhagen, Rik Panganiban 
wrote:

> Dear Friends,
>
> Speaking in my personal capacity, I would like to express a view on 
> the denial of accreditation to the WSIS of the media-rights group 
> Rapporteurs Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders).  For those 
> who do not know, during the high-level segment of the last session of 
> the Commission on Human Rights, held in March 2003, RSF disrupted one 
> of the meetings by throwing flyers into the assembly hall, denouncing 
> the election as chair of the CHR a representative of the government of 
> Libya. This was a planned act of civil disobedience, which resulted in 
> their expulsion from the hall of those RSF representatives, and 
> subsequently the suspension of their accreditation to ECOSOC for one 
> year.
>
> My understanding is that if an organization with ECOSOC consultative 
> status has their accreditation suspended or revoked, they are not 
> allowed to participate in other UN-sponsored fora.  Thus, on a 
> legalistic level, the WSIS secretariat was within their rights to not 
> allow this organization's representatives to be accredited to 
> participate in the WSIS.
>
> Civil society organizations should know some of the immediate results 
> of RSF's actions.  While many human rights groups at the Commission on 
> Human Rights were certainly in sympathy and agreement with the message 
> RSF was communicating, several disagreed vociferously with their 
> methods.  One direct effect of the RSF action was that every NGO was 
> subject to extreme searches for the rest of the CHR, and prevented 
> from carrying into meeting rooms of more than a handful of documents 
> for fear that each group would stage another similar demonstration.
>
> This was the first year that the Commission on Human Rights has ever 
> held a high-level segment.  One important goal of the high-level 
> segment was to bring more political weight and financial support for 
> the work of the CHR, which in recent years has suffered from severe 
> budget cuts effecting the basic functioning of the meeting, including 
> meeting times, translations, meeting rooms, etc.  By disrupting the 
> high-level segment, it will certainly be taken into consideration when 
> the Commission decides whether to hold it again in subsequent years.
>
> I am not opposed to civil disobedience, which has its place when other 
> means of protest and negotiation have been exhausted.  But civil 
> society organizations need to be clear about where they stand on 
> whether or not we choose to respect the rules of participation.   RSF 
> chose to do their action, I believe in full understanding of the 
> immediate and longer-term effect of that action. However I think we 
> need to be clear that NGOs in general have the responsibility to 
> participate in a constructive and fair manner, in the same way that we 
> expect governments to respect the rules of procedure.  If an NGO 
> chooses to not follow those rules of procedure, there are > consequences.
>
> As we fight for our rights to participate effectively in the WSIS 
> process, we need to be clear that we do not intend to simply shout at 
> government representatives, to shower them with flyers, but that we 
> want to engage constructively and respectfully in the negotiations.
>
>
> Rik Panganiban
> (in my personal capacity)
>
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