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Inside, wide-eyed

A weblog on digital civil rights, Free Software and Access to Knowledge.

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Tunisian WSIS repression: An interview

gerloff

Tuesday 15 November 2005

The last phase of the World Summit on the Information Society has hardly started, but the choice of host country already looks more questionable than ever. Markus Beckedahl has an interview (.mp3 - I hope the .ogg version is coming up) on his blog where Rikke Frank Joergenson, the coordinator of the international civil society's Human Rights Caucus, describes how Tunisian "security" forces physically attacked participants of a Civil Society meeting. The interview gives a good impression of what happened.

She talks of people being beaten by the police and a journalist nearly arrested, while the group tried several times to assemble at different locations. Remember, this are not the protests outside a G8 summit taking place behind closed doors (where similar repression frequently occurs). At the WSIS, Civil Society groups are registered participants in a meeting of the United Nations. Tunisian police are attacking the participants of an international diplomatic conference. Usually, these events are so overly civilised as to be rather boring. Physical aggression against anyone taking part in one is entirely unacceptable.

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Consumer Digital Rights Campaign launched

gerloff

Tuesday 15 November 2005

The European Consumer's Organisation (BEUC) has launched a campaign for consumer's digital rights.

The time has come to guarantee consumers certain basic rights in the digital world, and to tell
them what they can do with their digital hardware/content. This is our message in this 
campaign.

* Right to choice, knowledge and cultural diversity 
* Right to the principle of “technical neutrality” – defend and maintain consumer rights in the 
digital environment 
* Right to benefit from technological innovations without abusive restrictions 
* Right to interoperability of content and devices 
* Right to the protection of privacy 
* Right not to be criminalised

The BEUC people have assembled some texts that make it easy to plunge into the marvelous world of copyright, most importantly a glossary and a FAQ. This site provides an easy entry for consumers who are starting to wonder why they are being denounced as criminals all the time. I whish more consumer's organisations would take up this topic.

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