Civil Society, Global, Global Geopolitics, Headlines, Human Rights

COMMUNICATIONS: Human Rights at the Information Society Summit

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Sep 22 2005 (IPS) - The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) managed to avoid a scandal over the exclusion of a group of Chinese activists, but controversy will be difficult to defuse when discussion turns to human rights violations in Tunisia, the host country of the Summit’s second phase.

International and Tunisian human rights organisations became more vocal in their protests against abuses by the Tunisian authorities during the first week of the third meeting of the WSIS preparatory committee (PrepCom 3), taking place Sept. 19-30 in Geneva.

The committee’s discussions are geared primarily to the themes to be addressed at the second phase of the Summit, to be held Nov. 16-18 in Tunis, such as the bridging of the digital divide with more equitable access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the widely debated issue of Internet governance. These matters were also the focus of the first phase of the WSIS, held in Geneva in December 2003.

Despite the enormity of what is at stake, given the commercial and political implications of controlling a market of one billion Internet users, the discussions among representatives of the three stakeholders in this process – governments, the private sector and civil society – have generally run smoothly so far.

Until now, the only disturbance of this peaceful climate was sparked by a debate over the accreditation of the non-governmental organisation Human Rights in China (HRIC).

The New York-based group, founded in 1989 by Chinese scientists and scholars, states that its mission is to promote and protect human rights in the Asian giant.

In response to a motion made by the U.S. delegation to accredit HRIC for WSIS participation, the Chinese delegation raised a procedural objection to any discussion regarding organisations not already on the recommended list, which was ultimately backed by a split vote among the PrepCom 3 participants.

Sidiki Kaba, president of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), pointed out that during the first phase of the WSIS, the member states had adopted a Declaration of Principles that recognised the right to freedom of expression contained in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an essential foundation of the information society. “We can only deplore that governments have failed to apply these principles,” he added.

Anne-Laurence Lacroix, deputy director of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), commented to IPS that “unspeakable and discriminatory motives” were behind the decision finally adopted by 52 votes in favour and 35 against. Of the 194 countries accredited, only 122 attended the PrepCom 3 session in question, and 35 abstained from voting.

HRIC executive director Sharon K. Hom remarked that in the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which grants consultative status to non-governmental organisations, there is now a procedure for responding when NGO accreditation has been challenged, but such a mechanism does not exist in the WSIS.

Hom said it was ironic that her organisation had received accreditation to attend the 2003 World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Cancún, Mexico, while it is now struggling fruitlessly to participate in the WSIS, which will address themes far more relevant to its mission.

WSIS executive director Charles Geiger noted that the HRIC case was a highly sensitive one, which dates back to 2002, when the organisation first applied for participation in the Summit.

After careful consideration of the group’s application, as well as its annual reports and financial statements, it was noted that HRIC had listed a number of sources of funding but also mentioned, without specifying, “other generous donors.”

Moreover, Geiger said, in its application for accreditation to the 2001 U.N. World Summit Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, HRIC acknowledged that it had received contributions from governments, which is an objectionable source of direct financing for “non-governmental” organisations.

Although the group submitted an auditors report to the WSIS stating that it had not received any contributions from governments in 2004, Geiger maintained, “I think they have contributions from donors they cannot disclose.”

For her part, Renate Bloem, president of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organisations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO), commented that they are aware of the “politicisation” of the accreditation process.

In the meantime, while the HRIC dispute seems to have been successfully weathered, there is a storm looming over the preparatory committee sessions and the second phase of the WSIS itself that promises to be more difficult to elude: the denunciations made by numerous human rights organisations regarding alleged abuses in Tunisia.

Nicholas Howen, secretary general of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), expressed “grave concerns at the unwillingness of the Tunisian government to implement the right to freedom of opinion and expression.”

As an example, he pointed to the “arbitrary detention and sentence imposed on lawyer Mohammed Abbou for exercising this right.”

Eric Sottas, director of the OMCT, said that the case of Mohammed Abbou had become a symbol of the serious and repeated violations of the right to due process and to freedom of expression committed under the regime of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

But the most vocal protests by activists in recent weeks are connected to a dispute over control of the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) between two factions apparently divided by their stance towards the Ben Ali government.

A group of Tunisian and international human rights organisations have accused the Tunisian authorities of blocking the holding of the sixth LTDH Congress. “These provocative policies do not augur well for a successful Summit,” the organisations said in a statement.