Reporters sans frontieres banned from WSIS

Reporters Sans Frontieres, a non-governmental organisation fighting for
freedom of the press, was banned from further participation in the World
Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). According to a letter from the
Executive Director of the Summit, RSF was excluded for ‘administrative
reasons’. The exclusion is in fact a direct result of a protest RSF staged
in March, when Libya was appointed as chair of the UN Human Rights
Commission. After that protest, the UN banned RSF from all meetings for a
year.

Earlier, the organisation Human Rights in China was excluded from WSIS for
similarly suspect administrative reasons as well. The WSIS Human Rights
Caucus is very upset about these exclusions. “A summit on the information
society that allows the participation of governments that systematically
censor media and violate human rights but that doesn’t allow the
participation of some of the leading international groups defending those
rights makes no sense.”

Protest letter Human Right Caucus
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis