UN slated for stifling net debate
The UN has been criticised for stifling debate about net censorship after it disrupted a meeting of free-speech advocates in Egypt.
UN security demanded the removal of a poster promoting a book by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) during a session at the Internet Governance Forum in Egypt.
The poster mentioned internet censorship and China’s Great Firewall.
The UN has said that it had received complaints about the poster and that it had not been “pre-approved”.
“If we are not allowed to discuss topics such as internet censorship, surveillance and privacy at a forum on internet governance, then what is the point of the IGF?” Ron Deibert, co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative told BBC News.
‘Objections’
Professor Deibert said that he had been asked by the UN special rapporteur For Human Rights, who witnessed the removal, to send a formal letter of complaint.
Video of the event, posted to YouTube, show a UN security guard gathering up the poster from the floor and taking it away.
“No UN official was involved in throwing the poster on the floor,” a UN spokesperson said.
“Following repeated requests from the IGF Secretariat to remove the poster from the floor, a UN Security [guard] removed it from the floor and folded it undamaged. The organisers were told that they could pick it up anytime later that evening.”
The UN said they had received complaints about the poster from “delegates” and that it had not been “pre-approved for posting outside the allocated room”.
Part of the banner read: “internet censorship and surveillance are increasing in democratic countries as well as authoritarian states.
“The first generation of controls, typified by China’s ‘Great Firewall’, are being replaced by more sophisticated techniques that go beyond mere denial of information.”
Mr Deibert said that he asked “repeatedly” to see “rules or regulations governing this act”.
“They did not give us any, only referring to the ‘objections of a member state’,” he told BBC News.