[WSIS CS-Plenary] Call for an international treaty on freedom of the Internet

[Nabil El-Khodari]

Dear Rony Koven:

There are two incidents that prompted me to call for this:
1. The China incident where a search engine was ordered to filter content
from certain sites.
2. A personal one, where a friend of mine, a webmaster of a famous Egyptian
daily was tried and convicted in Egypt for publishing his late father's
poems on the ground that it is 'pornographic'. Fact is his father's poems
contained severe political opposition to the government then and yes he used
the f word, but the site was not located in Egypt and it carried the warning
that it has 'adult content' and was rated for adults only. He would have
faced prison had he stayed in Egypt, luckily he escaped to Russia!!!
[I would not, though may be I should, include the Indymedia incident]

Can we leave such issues to governments? At least let them stand up and
submit their reasons to the international community why they refuse to
ratify such agreement that should be based - as you correctly stated -
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

What resort do we have - particularly in non-democratic countries - to fight
that? I believe that the establishment of an international authority to
handle these matters is required.

Thank you for your thoughtful response and Happy New Year.

Sincerely,
 
Nabil El-Khodari
Founder/Treasurer
Nile Basin Society
Tel.: +1 (647) 722-3256
Fax: +1 (647) 722-3273	 

http://nilebasin.com
http://nilebasin.net
http://nile.ca 	
108 Waterbury Dr.
Toronto, Ontario, M9R 3Y3
Canada	 

"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." Dr. David Suzuki



-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf
Of Ronald Koven
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 7:13 PM
To: INTERNET:plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Call for an international treaty on freedom of
the Internet


 
Dear Nabil El-Khodari --

Please let me understand this: You are asking for an international treaty
-- meaning something signed by and binding upon governments -- and which
will provide that governments may not file complaints about Internet
content.

The unlikelihood of governments accepting such a self-denying ordinance is
so high that it should underline for you the danger inherent in your call
for such an international treaty. An international treaty of the kind you
are seeking is bound to contain provisions allowing governments to impose
restrictions. That is in the nature of most of the governments involved. 

Often, one of the worst things that can happen in life is that you get what
you ask for, because it won't be what you want.

What we do need is respect for and implementation of the most important
existing international text in this field, that is to say, Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Criminal activities can ordinarily be
handled under existing national penal codes. Any international body to deal
with such offenses will necessarily represent major repressive regimes who
will want to exploit the opening to restrict Internet content, using such
pretexts as protection of children to reduce permissible content to the
lowest common political denominator.

What is needed is for pressure to be generated on such governments to open
up. What we don't need is to give those governments openings for imposition
of still broader restrictions than they already impose.

Rony Koven

 
I totally agree with Nnenna. Though I would encourage establishment of an
international body to investigate complaints about use of Internet for
fraud, phishing, identity theft, etc. but NOT to police the internet. One of
its duties is also to receive complaints and respond to them regarding site
blocking and filtering. It should have the power to investigate and punish
(up to canceling domain name) of search engines that use these techniques in
response to government/corporations pressures.
 
I hope that an international agreement be reached to that effect and only on
receipt of legitimate complaints from users/companies and NOT governments.
Such agreement should express freedom of expression and freedom of the
Internet as an alternative source of information. It should protect
legitimate websites from blocking, filtering, etc. This agreement should be
ratified by all UN members.
 
Sincerely,
  

Nabil El-Khodari <mailto:webmaster at nilebasin.com> 
Founder/Treasurer
Nile Basin Society
Tel.: +1 (647) 722-3256
Fax: +1 (647) 722-3273  

http://nilebasin.com <http://nilebasin.com/> 
http://nilebasin.net <http://nilebasin.net/> 
http://nile.ca <http://nile.ca/>        
108 Waterbury Dr.
Toronto, Ontario, M9R 3Y3
Canada  

"If the people will lead, the leaders will follow." Dr. David Suzuki 
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