Some People Think the Internet is a Bad Thing: The Struggle for Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace

Join Amnesty International UK and the Observer Newspaper for a unique global event. On 6 June we will use the internet to link activists from around the world to discuss the struggle against internet repression and to celebrate the irrepressible desire of people towards freedom of expression.

Wednesday 6 June 18.30 (UK/19.30 Europe/13.30 EST/ 10.30 PST)

Speakers include: Martha Lane Fox, Clark Boyd, Richard Stallman, Ron Deibert, Sami Ben Garbia, Josh Wolf, Morton Sklar, Yan Sham-Shackleton, Markus Beckedahl, Kevin Anderson, Shava Nerad and contributions from Jimmy Wales, Cory Doctorow, Ethan Zuckerman, Dan Gillmor, Yu Ling and Jonathan Zittrain.

A unique global event linking activists from around the world to discuss the struggle against internet repression. Wherever you are, you will be able to watch the debate live on the day by webcast, and ask questions at www.amnesty.org.uk/webcast.

For sneak preview of the event go to www.amnesty.org.uk/irrepressible.

FOEonline Contributes to IGF Open Consultations

The Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media Online (FOEonline) today submitted a ontribution to the IGF Open Consultations in Geneva on 23 May. Please see the whole text of the Contribution below:

Contribution to the Synthesis Paper for theInternet Governance Forum Open Consultation on 23 May 2007 

From Members of the Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media Online
(FOEonline)

Freedom of Expression Online

The 2003 WSIS Geneva Declaration on Principles reaffirms “as an essential foundation of the Information Society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the Information Society. Everyone, everywhere should have the opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the Information Society offers.” 

The “Free Expression Online” Dynamic Coalition (FOEonline) appreciates this opportunity to contribute to the debate on Internet governance policy matters.  FOEonline would like to emphasize that freedom of expression is a widely recognized basic human right that is fundamental to human growth and development. 

A broadly recognized right to freedom of expression and communication is guaranteed in many of the major international treaties dealing with civil liberties.  Many of these treaties are legally binding on countries and many recognize the need for freedom of expression “in any medium”, foreshadowing the battles of the digital environment.  Freedom of expression rights should not be devalued on the Internet and individuals must retain their existing rights to communicate in the new online environment.

Protecting freedom of expression on the Internet in crucial because free expression is:

- the foundation of democracy;

- essential to the individual pursuit of happiness;

- a tool that provides protection for other foundational human rights and basic freedoms;

- and it promotes education and enables human development.

Many of the world’s citizens live in countries that are parties to international treaties that guarantee freedom of expression, making it one of the most basic and universally accepted human rights.  Among the agreements that protect freedom of expression and communication rights include:

• 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19)
• 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19)
• 1981 African Charter on People’s and Human Rights (Article 9)
• 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Article 10)
• Inter-American Bill of Rights:
  1948 American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (Article 4)
  1978 American Convention on Human Rights (Article 13)

IGF 2007 in Rio de Janeiro

Given the foregoing, FOEonline requests that the IGF community consider the following points in its planning for the 2007 IGF meeting in Rio de Janeiro:

·        Freedom of expression and communication rights should have a prominent place in the agenda of the 2007 IGF meeting since they are implicated by all of the 4 main IGF themes, and in particular is integral to the “Openness” main theme.

• “Best practices” in Rio should include consideration of free expression, since it is one of the most important values for development in an information/communication age.

• Civil liberties, such as freedom of expression online or privacy – but not limited to these – should be a cross-cutting theme that all workshops and main sessions should take into consideration in the light of their respective topic.

• The implications of technical developments or standards on civil liberties should be taken into account at every stage.  A multi-stakeholder and a cross-dimensional approach could be one of the added values of the IGF.

• The main theme of “Openness” should be retained for the Rio meeting and even strengthened, given its paramount role in protecting the rights of Internet users to communicate freely and protect other fundamental rights.   Promoting an open Internet infrastructure is one of the best ways of protecting freedom of expression and the free flow of information in cyberspace.

Internet Governance Workshop in Graz

The FOEonline coalition has been presented today during a workshop on ‘The European Dimension of Internet Governance‘ at the Institute of International Law and International Relations at Graz University (Austria).

Other speakers on perspectives on multi-stakeholder participation and human rights in the information society included Henrik Kaspersen, Director of the Computer Law Institute of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Meryem Marzouki of CNRS Paris, Martin Bredl of Telekom Austria, together with experts from the Czech Domain Name Arbitration Court or nic.at.

RSF issues petition for the release of Egyptian bloggers

At the occasion of World Press Freedom Day the media NGo Reporters sans frontieres (RSF) issued a petition for the release of “Kareem Amer” and of his colleague Abdul-Moneim Mahmud.

RSF asks Internet-users to sign the petition on www.rsf.org, in which the worldwide press freedom organisation calls on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a conference organised under the UN mantle, to block Egypt from hosting the event in 2008 unless the two bloggers are freed.

The petition will be sent, on 6 November 2007, exactly one year after the arrest of “Kareem Amer”, to Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, to Executive Coordinator of the IGF, Markus Kummer, as well as to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon.

For more information visit the organization’s website at www.rsf.org.

Code of Conduct for Blogs?

Tim O’Reilly proposed a Code of Conduct for bloggers last weekend. According to his self-regulatory proposal, blogs would be labelled either as ‘civility enforced’ and adhere to certain standards or state with another label that ‘anything goes’.

In spite of being a voluntary committment the proposed label sparked a debate on whether or not this would limit freedom of expression and anonymity on the Internet.

ICANN’s rejection of .xxx sparks vivid discussion

During it’s meeting in Lissabon that concluded on 30 March 2007 the ICANN board, inter alia, rejected the establishment of a .xxx top level domain.

Involving matters of Internet governance, the DNS, ICANN’s role and freedom of expression, this decision sparked a vivid debate, also among members of the free expression mailing list that has been set up by the FOEonline Dynamic Coalition.

For example, Susan Crawford in her blog explains why she voted in favour of the triple-x TLD.

See also the archives of the free expression mailing list for more comments and contributions: April 2007 Archives.

Taking stock and the way forward

On 13 February a stock taking session took place in Geneva. The IGF website offers transcripts and audio recordings from the meeting.

A list of participants is available here.

The full transcript of the meeting is available for download and the Chairman’s closing remarks can be downloaded separately for easy access.

Audio recordings of the interventions made during the stock-taking session are also available from the IGF site.

Internet Governance Forum: Is It More Than Talk?

Internet Governance Forum: Is It More Than Talk?
By Monika Ermert for Intellectual Property Watch
Multi-stakeholder “dynamic coalitions” of the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) are pushing to have privacy, intellectual property, open standards and freedom of expression on the agenda of the second meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil next autumn.
[...]

FOEonline Coalition presented in Geneva – New Coalition founded

The ‘Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media on the Internet (FOEonline)’ has been presented today by Christian Möller at the IGF stock-taking event in Geneva:

‘I would very briefly like to introduce the “Dynamic Coalition on Freedom of Expression and Freedom of the Media on the Internet”.

Already, the 2003 Geneva Declaration reaffirms Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which is the right of freedom of expression – as an “essential foundation of the information society”. At the same time, experience shows that this freedom is endangered worldwide. A number of workshops in Athens addressed this topic, and as an outcome, the Freedom of Expression Online Coalition has been set up.

This coalition will prepare background documents, discuss principles of free expression online, and feed into the IGF process, as well as provide input to the next IGF meeting in Rio.

At the moment, the coalition already has more than ten partners from different sectors, including, for example, the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, UNESCO, Reporters sans frontières, or Amnesty International. And, of course, it’s open for more supporters. Contact details and a mailing list of the coalition can be found on the IGF Web site.

And there is also a first preliminary coalition Web site that can be found at foeonline.wordpress.com. This is an open platform that can be used for contributions by all of the coalition partners.

Concluding, let me assure you that there is also cooperation with other coalitions, for example, with those on privacy or access on information, to avoid duplications of activities and to be more focused and efficient in our work.

I’m very much looking forward to continue the work within the dynamic coalitions which I think are very interesting and useful concepts for the IGF process.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.’

During this meeting a number of other Dynamic Coalitions have been presented. In addition, a new Dynamic Coalition on Online Collaboration has been announced, which aims at at providing other coalitions with online collaboration tools in order to help them carry out their tasks in the most efficient and effective way possible.

The whole transcript of the morning session can be found at http://www.intgovforum.org/Feb_igf_meeting/IGF-13.02.07-morning.txt.

Paris: New Media – The Press Freedom Dimension

The World Press Freedom Committee, the World Association of Newspapers/World Editors Forum and UNESCO are inviting to a conference on: New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension, Challenges and Opportunities of New Media for Press Freedom from 15 to 16 February 2007 at the UNESCO Headquarters, Paris.

The program can be found here.

If a couple of you is going there, maybe this woud be an opportunity to organize some informal meeting at the side of this conference.