[NA-Discuss] [At-Large] Middle East & North Africa Outreach

[Robert Guerra]

Khaled:

First, thanks for your comments.

My original email was to assess, if ICANN/At-Large staff had  
undertaken any efforts or is planning any such efforts to involve and  
engage internet users from the middle east and/or north african region  
for the upcoming fall public meeting in Egypt. I am well aware of the  
geopolitical issues of the region - indeed they are complex. However,  
it is a region with a growing and vibrant online community of bloggers  
and internet governance specialists.

Through my involvement and engagement with Diplo Foundation, Global  
Voices, and many other organizations that I advise - I have a great  
deal of contact with people in the region who are  active  on the  
internet . They are experts in internet governance, journalists,  
bloggers and yes, even user groups. In essence, they are active  
internet users that happy to know the fall ICANN meeting will be in  
their part of the world and seem to be keen to learn more, be active  
in the meeting and share their perspective on key issues that affect  
the region such as IDN, Multi-lingual internet, DNS security, etc.

As you may know, one of the big issues discussed  among bloggers and  
other users from the region is - of course - internet censorship and  
other restrictions imposed by governments such as Tunisia, Egypt,  
Syria and others. Reports from the Open Net Initiative, Global Voices  
Online and others speak in dire terms about how internet users are  
censored, blocked, arrested or worse.

http://del.icio.us/internetfreedom/egypt
http://del.icio.us/internetfreedom/syria
http://opennet.net/
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/

As such - a question to ICANN staff and upper management - who do seem  
to be cc'd on the message... Can the organization guarantee that the  
meeting will have open and unfiltered access to the internet, and be  
open to  all internet users from the region who wish to attend.


regards

Robert Guerra



On 13-May-08, at 3:37 AM, Khaled KOUBAA wrote:

> Jeff,
> I am sorry to say that your point of view of the region is a little  
> bit wrong. We do have many Internet governance experts in the MENA  
> region.
> Unfortunately ( and many experiences I had in the past ) that the  
> only image you have about our region is about terrorism or human  
> rights problems.
> We in the Arab World Internet Institute ( www.aw2i.org ) will be  
> happy to provide you soon reports coming from experts of our region.
> Other thing : the number of phishers, spammers and hackers are not  
> so big in our region as you said. Many reports mention that.
> The number of Internet users is already under the number of hackers  
> and phishers in other regions in the world.
> Khaled
>
>
> Jeffrey A. Williams wrote:
>>
>> Robert and all,
>>
>>   Thank you Robert for you kind offer.  There are
>> to our knowledge no REAL internet governance experts
>> that are natives to the region to which you refer.
>> There are however a significant number of phishers,
>> spammers, and hackers associated with several terrorist
>> organizations that may claim to be internet governance
>> experts that are indiginious to the region of which you
>> speak.  I don't believe these folks would be very
>> helpful, but would be of interest to the relevant
>> LEA's seeking at this time to bring these individuals
>> into a, shall we say a "More controled enviroment".
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>>> From: Robert Guerra <lists at privaterra.info>
>>> Sent: May 12, 2008 9:31 AM
>>> To: At-Large Worldwide <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
>>> Subject: [At-Large] Middle East & North Africa Outreach
>>>
>>>
>>> Looking ahead towards the fall ICANN meeting in Egypt - I would like
>>> to know if any outreach is being planned or envisioned to internet
>>> users in the middle-east and north africa.
>>>
>>> If not, suffice it to say that I am in touch with a rather extensive
>>> network of internet governance experts, internet users - bloggers  
>>> and
>>> internet saavy organizations in the region that could be  
>>> interested in
>>> attending the meeting and engaging us.
>>
>