How do we ensure access to the internet is a human right enjoyed by everyone? This is one of the critical questions asked by an annual publication that highlights the importance of people's access to information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure. Global Information Society Watch 2008 (or GISWatch), published in print and online by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Third World Institute (ITeM), and Dutch development organisation Hivos, collects the perspectives of ICT academics, analysts, activists and civil society organisations from across the globe in over 50 reports.
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"No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honour to belong to all those categories and now especially the last." Journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was murdered in Sri Lanka on January 8, 2009, wrote this for his last editorial published in The Sunday Leader on January 11.
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In assessing cyber crime legislation, policy makers and gender and development advocates must carefully consider the implications for privacy and information security. As ICT blur the lines between personal and public, the nature of the internet and cyber crime - including how they affect human rights and social justice - must be questioned.
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A new global standard for intellectual property rights enforcement called the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" (ACTA) is being promoted by the United States, the European Community, Switzerland and Japan at the G8 summit. The treaty poses threats to consumers' privacy and civil liberties, innovation, free flow of information on the Internet and developing countries' ability to choose their own policies.
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According to the Graz University of Technology research, Google as search engine is dominating and that on its own is dangerous, "but could possibly be accepted as 'there is no real wayout', although this is not true, either. However, in conjunction with the fact that Google is operating many other services, and probably silently cooperating with still further players, this is unacceptable".
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Gangs and corrupt officials in Latin America. Tyrants in the Middle East and Asia. Wars in Africa. Death threats and court cases in Europe and Central Asia. These are the most serious threats to free expression, says the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) in its half-year press freedom review. The report is a grim picture of the attacks, imprisonment and violence faced by journalists in many countries.
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GL is committed with media, governance and gender justice. Working with partners at local, national, regional and international level to promote gender equality in and through the media and effective campaigns for ending gender violence, HIV and AIDS.
The Forum will offer participants a series of highest level panels addressing critical issues to the WSIS implementation and follow-up in multi-stakeholder set-ups.
Facebooking a hunger strike: Saudi activists' innovative online campaign
Seventy Saudi activists launched a two-day hunger strike via Facebook to protest the detention of 11 human rights activists who have been held in Saudi Arabia for months -some for almost two years- without charge.
Rich countries negotiate secret treaty on intellectual property enforcement
Rich countries are coordinating actions to approve the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a secret intellectual property enforcement treaty being negotiated behind closed doors with serious implications for civil liberties and privacy rights.
