[WSIS CS-Plenary] On conditional support to Shirin Ebadi

[Elizabeth Carll, PhD]

Dear Meryem,

The endorsement of Shirin Ebadi by the Health and ICT Working Group was not
made contingent on the inclusion of the mention of access to physical and
mental health information in her speech, as it was a recommendation not a
stipulation.  Obviously, Ms. Ebadi will write her own speech.  Therefore, it
is an unconditional endorsement.

However, it may be helpful for her to know the concerns of the various
groups within the WSIS CS as often development and human rights issues have
taken the back burner on WSIS II discussions.   Therefore,  forwarding these
concerns to her may be helpful in her becoming cognizant of the various
issues.

Hope this has helped clarify.  Thank you for your efforts in having Shirin
Ebadi speak at the opening session.

Best regards,

Elizabeth

Dr. Elizabeth Carll
Coordinator, WSIS Health and ICT Working Group
Affiliations:
Representative to the UN & Focal Point to WSIS
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies;
Vice President
Communications Coordination Committee for the UN;
Chair, Media/ICT Working Group
UN NGO Committee on Mental Health
New York, USA
Tel: 1631-754-2424
Fax: 1631-754-5032
ecarll at optonline.net

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Meryem Marzouki
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 5:33 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Cc: hr-wsis at iris.sgdg.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] On conditional support to Shirin Ebadi


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Dear all,

I'm afraid it would be difficult to include supports to Shirin Ebadi
that seem conditional to having something very specific said. This
applies to the Disability Caucus support as well as to the Health and
ICT Working Group support, following the messages sent by,
respectively, Hiroshi and Elizabeth. The Human Rights Caucus is
grateful for these two supports, but we cannot seriously commit, on
behalf of Ms. Ebadi, that she would specifically address a given point.
If we do that, then we will soon end with a kind of "shopping list".
This is not reasonable.

So, unless there is a message posted, on time, by both Hiroshi and
Elisabeth, confirming their support on the general basis that Ms. Ebadi
would address in her speech the necessary human rights and social
justice foundations for an information society, in the way she
personally feels appropriate to address this issue, the Disability
Caucus and the Health and ICT Working Group would not be included, so
that no one may feel disappointed or, worse, utilized in some way or
another. I think this is fair enough, and honest.

I understand the importance of the issue of the rights of persons with
disabilities, and in particular the rights of women with disabilities
(Hiroshi request). I also understand the importance to have access to
physical and mental health information and services via ICT (Elizabeth
request). I share these concerns. But anyone would reasonably recognize
that if this level of details is reached for all issues of concerns of
whole CS @ WSIS, then the opening speech would need to last some hours,
and would loose any strength. There are numerous other speaking slots
(round-tables, high-level panels, plenaries) where the development of a
given issue is more relevant. But we're speaking of the opening.

More generally speaking, I would like to refer to a message by Ronald
Koven on this list (Tue, 11 Oct 2005 17:29:14 EDT, Subject: speakers
list transmitted to the ITU), on this issue. I share this viewpoint
expressed by Rony, specially since we're talking here of a really
outstanding figure, with true intellectual authority worldwide.
Moreover, this person is known all over the world, and has a public
status. In other words, everyone know, or may find out, what she
previously said in numerous top level occasions. If we support her,
this means that we know she would make a strong high-level address, of
which we all will be proud.

Finally, may I remind everyone that, at the Geneva Summit opening,
Kicki Nordström was the plenary speaker, and half of her speech was
dedicated to the specific issue of people with disabilities, specially
blind people. The speech may be found at:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/geneva/coverage/
archive.asp?lang=en&c_type=op%7C10

On a more practical issue, I have to tell you that my mail (pop) server
has had problems since last night, and as a consequence I'm able to
write from but not to receive emails at my usual address. This means
that I am able to gather all the supports expressed on the plenary list
(through the web archives), but not those sent directly to my email
address after Saturday 23:00 GMT. Sorry about that.

Best,
Meryem
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