[Lac] Informe sobre Tunez 6

[Gustavo Gómez]

Luego de una plenaria nutrida de intensidades verbales en el debate de la
sociedad civil llevado a cabo en la maniana del sabado 26- en la última
jornada de la PREPCOM de Tunez, se arribo a un posición de concenso
expresandose las dos posiciones que se confrontaron a lo largo de estas tres
jornadas.

Finamente pudieron ser leidas en la plenaria general y con ello se alcanzo un
objetivo muy apreciado por los grupos de la sociedad civil aquí
reunidos: que no hubiera ningún tipo de cercenamiento a la libertad de
expresion.

Lamentamos no poder enviarles la versión en espaniol pero dado la
urgencia de los tiempos le adelantamos la version en ingles y esperamos que
algun voluntario o voluntria la pueda traducir.

Jose Luis Aguirre - Arturo E. Bregaglio
Representación AMARC - CRIS en Tunez

Civil Society statement on the human rights issue
Intervention de la société civile sur la question des droits de
l’homme
PrepCom1, WSIS second phase
Hammamet – June 26 2004
Presented by
Souhayr Belhassen, vice-president of the Tunisian Human Rights League


At the beginning of this WSIS second phase, civil society organizations
present in Hammamet wish to express their objectives and their working
priorities in view of the Tunis Summit in 2005.

At a time where the foundations of international human rights law are being
challenged by newly adopted laws and measures, everywhere in the world, in
the name of a fight against terrorism, it was important that the Declaration
of principles adopted in Geneva in 2003 makes reference to the fundamental
principles of universality and indivisibility of all human rights, to the
right to development, and specially reaffirms the necessary respect of the
integrality of Article 19 of the UDHR on freedom of expression, of
information and of communication.

This second phase must go beyond that. Indeed, we intend that it clarifies
these principles by also reaffirming the fundamental principle of non
discrimination, the necessity to respect international labor standards, and
the recognition that a true security can only be reached with measures
entirely compatible with internationally recognized human rights, not least
the right to privacy. In addition, we cannot accept that the Declaration of
principles admits that the rule of law is supposed to « reflect
national realities» rather than being in coherence with the legally
binding obligations of States according to the international human rights
treaties they have ratified.

The Tunis phase will focus on Internet governance and infrastructure
financing issues. We will take part in this work, making sure that its
results ensure the promotion of the effective implementation of the whole set
of human rights, and do not derogate from them.

Without effective implementation, the principles would indeed stay without
substance. We request that WSIS allow for these principles to be translated
into an information and communication society serving human rights. To this
end, we wish that the Summit define precise indicators allowing to evaluate
the realization of this objective and set up an international mechanism for
their assessment on this ground, at the local, regional and international
level.

Finally, we are entirely conscious of the fundamental importance of holding
WSIS here and for the people of all the global South countries, and we thus
wish its success. However, we wish to reaffirm that it is the duty of the two
host countries of the Summit to show exemplarity, especially in the
realization of freedom of expression, of information, of communication, as
well as of freedom of association and the right to privacy.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/lac/attachments/20040626/aeb1026c/attachment.html