Citizens' Summit on the Information Society

A broad coalition of human rights organisations has announced they will organise a Citizens’ Summit on the Information Society in Tunis, from 16 to 18 November 2005, to coincide with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Citizens groups, civil society organisations, national, regional and international institutions, government delegations and all other interested parties and individuals are invited to participate in the Citizen’s Summit on the Information Society.

The CSIS program will consist of a series of panels and conferences addressing main WSIS issues from the public perspective. CSIS aims to first of all send a strong message of support and solidarity from the international civil society to the local civil society and citizens in Tunisia. Secondly, CSIS wants to offer a specific civil society perspective on the main issues debated at the WSIS. In the first phase, in Geneva in 2003, thanks also to constant pressure from civil society, the conference focussed on human rights and social justice as cornerstones of the Information Society.

CSIS is organised by a large coalition of human rights organisations such as the Association for Progressive Communications, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Human Rights Watch, the World Association of Newspapers, the World Press Freedom Committee and the WSIS Civil Society Human Rights Caucus. CSIS will be organised in coordination with independent Tunisian civil society organisations. These local Tunisian organisations are having difficulties in accessing the WSIS conference itself. Most of the independent Tunisian organisations are even denied any access to WSIS. Since they are not officially recognised by the Tunisian government, they can not ask for accreditation.

Announcement and call for support CSIS (24.10.2005)
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/hr-wsis/csis-pr-241005-en.pdf

Citizens’ Summit on the Information Society
http://www.citizens-summit.org/