Joint Statement of Civil Society Delegates to the 2013 Internet Governance Forum

See the original statement. 

 

Freedom House led a delegation of civil society leaders and online activists from around the world to Bali, Indonesia for the 8th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the UN's flagship conference for discussing global Internet policy. Following the IGF, 17 organizations and individuals signed on to a joint statement to highlight the concerns they raised throughout the Forum, and to offer recommendations to governments, internet companies, and international organizations on how to better protect internet freedoms. This statement was delivered to the Forum during the Open Mic session on the final day by Bouziane Zaid.

We, the undersigned representatives of a group of civil society leaders worldwide who attended and participated in the 2013 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on October 22-25 in Bali, Indonesia as part of the Freedom House delegation, make this statement at the meeting’s conclusion to highlight a number of opinions we expressed and concerns we raised throughout the Forum.

The 2013 IGF provided a valuable space for the members of our group to engage with other stakeholder groups, through the Forum’s sessions and also through side meetings and consultations with representatives of governments, businesses, the technical community, multilateral bodies, and civil society organizations from all over the world. We urge all stakeholders to continue to engage and participate in future IGFs, to strengthen the Forum’s multistakeholder process, and to uphold the principles of openness, transparency, and inclusiveness. Without the IGF, there is no comparable venue for civil society to directly raise its perspective and concerns with leaders in the government, the private sector, and the technical community.

We share the sentiment with the vast majority of IGF participants that the Internet governance process can and should be improved, but stress the importance of upholding and strengthening the multistakeholder approach to ensure that the internet remains open, global, secure and resilient. In calling for more efforts to promote, protect, and advocate for human rights online, our group has underscored broad principles and recommendations, such as:

1. All laws, policies, regulations, terms of service, user agreements, and other measures to govern the internet must adhere to international standards of human rights, including but not limited to Article 19 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, guaranteeing the right to freedom of expression; Article 12, guaranteeing the right to privacy; and Article 20, guaranteeing the right to free association. As an important step, states and other stakeholders must look to Human Rights Council Resolution 20/8 – adopted by consensus in July 2012 – affirming “that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression,” and pledging to explore further “how the Internet can be an important tool for development and for exercising human rights.” This applies to ending illicit online surveillance by any government. To be legitimate and lawful, any surveillance must be limited, targeted, used to deter or investigate criminalized activity, and subject to independent judicial oversight.

2. Consistency across the many spaces for discussion around Internet governance issues – including those spaces clustered around regional, sub-regional, national, linguistic, and other groupings –  is crucial to ensure the principles of openness, transparency, and inclusiveness are upheld in all venues. This is not multistakeholderism for multistakeholderism’s sake, but rather recognizing the need to represent all voices, perspectives and interests in setting standards, norms, and policies that affect the internet, both locally and globally. The term multistakeholder is overused and applied to a wide range of events, groups and processes. Various international organizations, as well as national governments, must make it a top priority to replace lipservice to multistakeholderism with genuine efforts to bring all stakeholders to the table on equal footing.

3. Transparency and accountability are crucial next steps in the internet governance discussion, and need to be fully implemented by all stakeholder groups. Businesses are beginning to recognize transparency reports as serving their users and their corporate social responsibilities, as well as their bottom-line interests. Governments likewise should ensure that their policies and practices are fully transparent as a means of preserving their legitimacy, credibility, and moral authority with their own citizens and the international community. In instances of content censorship, surveillance, shutting down or deliberate slowing down of networks, and other methods of internet control, these two stakeholder groups must work independently and together to divulge details about these measures and have them open to public debate. In addition, governments should institute strict controls on the export of surveillance and filtering technologies to regimes that have failed to demonstrate a commitment to upholding human rights, while the private sector should take a close look at some of their own practices in this domain. In some countries, bloggers, activists, and other internet users are subject to beatings, imprisonment, and even murder when they post information critical of the authorities.

We thank the government of Indonesia for its warm hospitality and dedicated efforts in successfully hosting the 8th annual meeting of the Global IGF. Despite the confusion during the summer over whether the event would be held in Bali, we were able to convene our delegation of civil society advocates, activists and academics from more than 18 countries. However, three of our colleagues had to cancel their attendance owing to visa issues. The letter granting certain registered participants permission to obtain visas upon arrival in Indonesia came too late, was rejected by airline officials, and was not extended to participants from all countries. For future IGFs, it would be preferable to announce the visa on arrival special procedure well in advance and officially notify the appropriate channels.

Thank you.

Signatories:

- Freedom House
- The Unwanted Witness, Uganda
- Jorge Luis Sierra, México
- Damir Gainutdinov, Russian Federation, AGORA Association
- Nighat Dad, Pakistan, Digital Rights Foundation
- Artem Goriainov, Kyrgyzstan, Public Foundation “Civil Initiative on Internet Policy”
- Giang Dang, Vietnam
- Fatima Cambronero, Argentina, AGEIA DENSI Argentina
- Michelle Fong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong In-Media
- Dalia Haj-Omar, Sudan, GIRIFNA
- Bouziane Zaid, Morocco
- Syahredzan Johan, Malaysia
- Juned Sonido, Philippines
- Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)
- Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM)
- Mahmood Enayat, United Kingdom, Small Media
- Abeer Alnajjar, Jordan
- Arzu Geybullayeva, Azerbaijan

Internet Governance Forum meets again [updated]

It is that time of the year, when the annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meets again. This year, the event is hosted by Indonesian government and we are in Bali. I won't lie, concentrating in a beautiful place like this, surrounded by stunning beach hasn't been easy (especially when you are the only person dressed in business causal outfit while the rest of the guests walk around in their bikinis and other summer attire).  

This year's general theme is Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation for Growth and Sustainable Development. As it has been in the past years, the guests of the conference represent a diverse group- government representatives, civil society institutions, media, academia, human rights defenders, freedom of press advocates, activists, journalists, and bloggers.

I have only been to two IGFs but its enough to compare. Whether it was the internet, the venue or any other logistical matter, IGF2013 was by far, better organized than IGF2012 in Baku. There were shuttle buses waiting for guests at the airport not to mention a registration table set up at the arrival terminal. Of course, visas were issued upon arrival with no difficulties (this is not to say that there weren't visa issues- many participants, especially those traveling from Africa had difficulties to either obtain visa, or missed the forum, because they were managed to get it on time). 

The registration on the first day of the forum was also very quick. Perhaps it was because our delegation arrived early but still it did seem all throughout the day, that the registration line moved more or less quick.

Last year I attended IGF as an independent, this year however,  I am here as part of a kick ass Freedom House delegation and its been a privilege to be here with them (in fact, check out the Freedom on the Net reports published by the Freedom House this year).

Some highlights

Registration: The registration process was very efficient as I mentioned earlier.  One strange encounter was when I received my badge, it had my picture from last year IGF. I don't remember signing any papers letting IGF Secretariat keep my photo. As it turned out later during the day I wasn't the only one. Few more people who attended IGF last year in Azerbaijan were issued badges with photos from last year (as I discovered later, it wasn't only the photos from last year but also USB sticks too). 

Another bizarre experience was meeting Miss Internet Bali 2013- indeed, you didn't misread that. There was Miss Internet, who was the pageant winner (if you are fluent in Indonesian you can learn more about it here). According to an article in Jakarta post I found online the winner is the 19 year old Dewa Ayu Windu Sari Devi. She is a student at the Udayana University's School of Economics. Her extensive knowledge on Internet usage and services in Indonesia got her the prize. Devi is going to be the symbol of using the Internet "smartly and wisely" reported Jakarta post.

Wifi: the internet connection which was terrible last year (not to mention completely inaccessible during some of the sessions which focused on the human rights or freedom of expression issues in particular) was working just fine here (some participants had some difficulties connecting); each meeting room had a giant stand set up with a list of names of each sessions scheduled to take place in these rooms. The leaflet distributed upon registration with the IGF program provided the map of the venue with room names and numbers. 

I think the main reason why it was different this year was because for Azerbaijani government it wasn't so much about the quality of organizing but about simply having an event like this in order to add it to its list of "trophies" (there is an Azerbaijan booth here proudly distributing a report from last year's IGF, but proudly failing to mention anything about the human rights discussions or press freedom related criticism raised during the meetings). As an alternative you can read this report titled "False Freedom" that just came out. 

Issues discussed: Throughout the week some very interesting and important discussions were made-highlighting safety of bloggers, protecting rights of online activists, the role of governments in ensuring safety of users and free access of information and more (for the list of workshops and sessions see here). Surely there were sessions when internet policies of repressive governments was questioned and the lack of accountability measures- of holding governments responsible- highlighted. But whether there is going to be a solution to this any time soon is yet to be seen.

Wrapping up this one week long event, I am looking back and thinking of ways of taking back with me the knowledge (especially on online security) and contacts and hoping that meetings like IGF have more impact on certain governments and issues. But also get their control mechanism in order- because it is no doubt interesting that IGF is hosted in countries where human rights and freedom of the press records are not necessarily at their best.