Modified letter to De Mello

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Hi Rik,

As for now, many members of the human rights caucus would be willing to 
sign a letter to De Mello, and to circulate it among other HR NGOs, 
provided that :

1/ The letter, though addressed to him, doesn't ask him directly to 
participate to PrepCom3, since it would be quite "odd  for human rights 
organizations to request he leaves the desperate situation in Iraq -- 
where phone lines are not even working -- to attend a prep com on 
information technology", as one of the caucus members noticed. We could 
however ask for his participation to the summit

2/ the first sentence of para 4 ("Like all scientific innovations, 
information communications technologies in themselves are 
value-neutral") should be removed. Indeed, most of us think that ICTs 
are not "value-neutral" and, although this is not exactly what you 
meant in the context of the letter, we prefer to avoid any ambiguity.

Please tell us if you would agree with these slight modifiations (see 
below).

Best regards,
Meryem
=========
The letter would then become:

June 2003

Sergio Vieira de Mello
High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations
Geneva, Switzerland

RE: Human Rights and the World Summit on the Information Society


Your Excellency Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello:

The under-signed civil society organizations strongly encourage the 
active participation of your Office at the highest representation level 
in the preparatory committee and summit meeting of the World Summit on 
the Information Society, taking place in September and December 2003, 
respectively.  Human rights are an essential requirement of the 
Information Society, as elaborated in the draft declaration of the WSIS 
(WSIS/PCIP/DT/1-E):

10. The essential requirements for the development of an equitable 
Information Society include: The respect for all internationally 
recognized human rights and fundamental freedoms. Notably the right to 
freedom of opinion and expression, including the right to hold opinions 
without interference and seek to, receive and impart information and 
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers in accordance with 
article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to 
unhindered access by individuals to communication media and information 
sources…

As the United Nations highest human rights official, your good offices 
are needed to ensure that human rights language in the WSIS process is 
comprehensive, strong and consistent with resolutions and decisions 
adopted by the Commission on Human Rights and build upon human rights 
language developed through the various UN world summits and conferences.

Civil society organizations view ICTs as having both tremendous 
applications that enhance human rights, such as through the rapid 
dissemination of action alerts and instant access to human rights 
information, and disturbing capacities to greatly diminish human 
rights, such as through enhanced surveillance and monitoring functions 
of governments facilitated by ICTs.

Only through the active participation of governments, civil society, 
and international human rights institutions such as your Office can 
these ICTs be best harnessed to maximize the protection of human rights 
worldwide.

We thank you for your consideration of this request and look forward to 
seeing you in September.

Sincerely,


[under-signed NGOs]

--
Meryem Marzouki - http://www.iris.sgdg.org
IRIS - Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire
294 rue de Charenton - 75012 Paris
Tel/Fax. +33(0)144749239