WSIS & Human Rights Abuses in Tunsia

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a UN event addressing the needs of the information society and telecommunications in the world today. The idea is that it might be able to come up with something along the lines of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for Communications Rights.

In reality it’s a sidelined process while all the real decisions are being pushed in to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) which operates under WTO rules and is not part of the UN system. Even then the US and other governments are using WSIS to push an agenda of super privatization and intellectual property uber allis.

Due to complicated and misunderstood infighting, the WSIS conference was divided up in to two parts. The first was in Geneva last year, and the second will be in Tunis, Tunisia. While many support the idea of holding a conference in the ‘developing world’ the choice of Tunisia has worried many.

The OurMedia Network of academics and media activists is issuing an open letter to Kofi Annan. It is disturbing that a meeting communications rights would be held in a place which regularly jails it’s citizens for what they say.