[WSIS CS-Plenary] Ralf & Rik's list of "the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" in Tunis

[Rik Panganiban]

Dear Friends,

Ralf and I wrote up a piece in December 2003 about the best and worst  
parts of the Geneva WSIS.  We decided to do the same for the Tunis  
WSIS. You can find the text of our article below, and also at

  	http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/840.htm
	and 	http://rikomatic.com/blogomatic

(Note that all views and opinions are those of the authors and do no  
purport to represent the views or opinions of any organizations that  
they are associated with. If there are any errors of fact it's  
probably Rik's fault since he was too tired to fact-check. And errors  
of grammar are probably Ralf's fault since English is not his native  
language.)

Enjoy!

Ralf and Rik
===================================================

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Part II:
Rik and Ralf’s Take on the WSIS
November 2005

By Ralf Bendrath and Rik Panganiban

In December 2003, we put together a listing of the high and low  
points from the Geneva World Summit on the Information Society, which  
we called “How Was the Summit?”  In that same spirit, we submit to  
you our very personal take on the best and worst of the Tunis WSIS.

The Good
•	Speaker Selection: This time around, civil society through their  
own self-organizing mechanisms selected  nearly all of the 35  
individuals who spoke at the official WSIS plenaries, roundtables and  
high level panels.

•	Ms. Shirin Ebadi: In a very last minute effort, the Human Rights  
Caucus managed to put together an impressive campaign to get Ms.  
Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Iranian human  
rights activist, selected to speak as the civil society speaker at  
the opening ceremony of the WSIS.  As anticipated, she pulled no  
punches and delivered a very strong statement in support of basic  
human rights and social justice.

•	Internet Access: Unlike Geneva, the ITU managed to get fairly  
stable, robust, and free (as in beer) wireless internet throughout  
the Kram convention centre. For those laptop owners in need of very  
fast connections, there were also lots of LAN cable plugs in the  
civil society offices. A not-so-secret SMTP server even allowed folks  
to send out mail.  And no web filtering was reported on the summit  
premises.

•	Overpasses:  In Geneva, we had a heck of a time allocating and  
distributing these “overpasses” so people could attend the opening  
ceremony and plenaries of the WSIS.  This time around, we had our act  
together with an online reservation system, pretty fair allocations  
of passes to various caucuses, and possibilities for even newcomers  
to get into the conference hall.  In the end, as expected, barely  
anyone attended the official proceedings after the opening ceremony.

•	“The Third Paradise”: This most beautiful side-event took place in  
an old townhouse in the medina, where the Brazilian government had  
joined forces with an Italian cultural foundation. They brought  
together Mediterranean artists, free software and knowledge workers,  
video documentarists and cultural activists for an amazing program  
during the whole week. The highlight clearly was Free Software guru  
Richard Stallmann singing protest songs and Brazilian cultural  
minister Gilberto Gild playing along on the guitar. Cozy atmosphere,  
loungy interior and extremely friendly people made this the best  
evening chill-out place after the political frenzy at the official  
summit.

The Bad
•	Web Censorship:  Various witnesses reported that outside of the  
summit area in the Kram Convention Centre, the Tunisian authorities  
continued to censor online content deemed dangerous to the regime,  
such as the websites of the Tunisian League for Human Rights.  Even  
the Swiss news site swissinfo.ch was blocked because they covered the  
Swiss President’s opening speech at the WSIS that was clearly  
critical of the Tunisian human rights record. The web was not only  
filtered in the official summit hotels, but even at the ICT4ALL  
exhibition right next to the summit.

•	Swiss-level Prices in Africa: Everything about the WSIS was clearly  
priced at corporate expense account rates, from the overpriced hotels  
to the horrible two euro sandwiches in the cafes. We understand that  
several African and Latin American NGOs were not able to attend due  
to the high travel, accommodation and cost-of-living expenses.
Noise: The meeting rooms and offices at the summit only had paper or  
cloth walls and no ceiling. This again – like in Geneva – created a  
constant noise level which made it extremely hard to concentrate on  
your work or calmly discuss with others during the many interesting  
side-events.

•	Toilet Paper:  Or lack thereof.  No further comment necessary.

The Ugly
•	Harassment of the Citizen’s Summit: Like at many other UN world  
conferences, civil society groups had organized several meetings  
outside of the official summit. The biggest event was supposed to be  
the “Citizens’ Summit on the Information Society”, organized together  
with independent Tunisian NGOs, others were also planned by e.g. the  
German Heinrich Böll Foundation. The Tunisian authorities repeatedly  
cancelled room bookings and blocked access to the buildings.  
Therefore, the Citizens’ Summit could not take place, and the German  
UN Ambassador could not even get into the Goethe Institute – an  
official subsidiary of the German Foreign Office. The Tunisian secret  
police mostly showed up in badly-fitting dark suits, refused to give  
their names or any written documentation, and used as their standard  
answer “This meeting is illegal. If you want to meet, you can meet at  
the summit”.

•	Paranoid Security Measures: With the recent Jordanian terrorist  
attack, it is perhaps understandable that the Tunisian hosts might be  
worried about a security incident.  But the seemingly thousands of  
security personnel throughout the Kram Centre as well as encircling  
the area with their automatic weapons and shotguns seemed extremely  
excessive. Participants reported random bag searches by gruff and non- 
communicative security personnel. Some participants were even blocked  
from entering the Kram center in the evenings, though the summit  
negotiations were still going on at the same time, and could only  
enter after extended discussions. In the hotels, secret police in  
plain-clothes were everywhere in the lobbies and hallways, creating  
an atmosphere of constant surveillance.

•	Privacy invasions: During the Geneva summit, civil society had  
protested the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in  
the name badges. The entrance control system again use these badges,  
time-stamped the entry of all participants, and stored the data.  
Theoretically, this technology could have been used for surveillance  
of the movements of all summit participants and for registering who  
walks (and talks) with whom. Though the ITU had promised it at  
PrepCom3 in September, there was no official privacy policy  
available. It again is unclear what happened to the data afterwards,  
and if the host country authorities got access to it.
  
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