[WSIS CS-Plenary] CS intervention on new "terrorism" paragraph this morning

[Ralf Bendrath]

Hi all,

as a number of people had already asked about it, below is our 
intervention on the new paragraph 50bis Israel had introduced yesterday 
afternoon.
It is already online at the ITU site at 
<http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/contributions/sca/CS-29.doc>.

I just came from the drafting group session: It seems we left some 
impression. Is much shorter and less vague now and includes human rights 
references. :-)

Ralf

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WSIS Tunis Phase, PrepCom-3
WSIS Civil Society Privacy and Security Working Group
WSIS Civil Society Human Rights Caucus

Statement in Subcommittee A, morning session, 29 September 2005

Yesterday afternoon Israel proposed a new paragraph 50bis. Because it was 
introduced in a drafting group and not in the subcommittee, I will read it 
for you for the sake of transparency:

“We underline the importance of countering the manifestations of terrorism 
at all its forms in the Internet. In particular, we condemn the use of the 
internet for purposes of financing of terrorist acts, radicalization 
towards terrorist acts, recruitment for terrorist acts, and glorification 
of terrorist acts that may incite further terrorist acts.”

Civil society is impressed by the fact that it is possible to use the word 
“terrorist” not less than six times in one single sentence.

We are very concerned about this paragraph and strongly oppose it, for the 
following reasons:

1. The international community has tried for years, but has not yet been 
able to reach agreement on how to define terrorists or terrorism. The 
Secretary General Report for the Millenium Summit again called for Member 
States to adopt a definition of terrorism. Before this has happened, we 
want to remind you of the old wisdom that “one country’s freedom fighter 
is the other one’s terrorist”. Therefore, this paragraph would introduce 
vague language that is open to all kinds of interpretation and misuse.

2. The same argument applies to the language of “manifestations of 
terrorism at all its forms in the Internet”. It is totally unclear what 
“manifestations” of terrorism on the internet would be. This language 
opens a dangerous door to censorship and infringements on Freedom of 
Expression.

3. Likewise, mentioning “glorification of terrorist acts that may incite 
further terrorist acts” is equally imprecise and vague. What acts of 
terror can you not glorify? What is glorification? Which kind of internet 
use “may incite” other acts, and which one would not? If CNN or Al-Jazeera 
report about acts of terrorism and show footage of the attacks – as 
happened around the world, online and offline, on September 11, 2001 – it 
could be seen as glorification. The terrorists’ supporters surely loved it.

4. We are also uncertain what is meant by “financing terror on the 
internet”. Maybe this refers to websites that accept donations, but that 
already falls under international rules on funding terror – the FATF rules 
and other banking rules. This is well covered in other agreements and has 
nothing to do with Internet Governance.

5. We get the feeling that some governments are using the debate around 
Internet governance to sneak in all kinds of other issues that do not 
belong here. In the Compilation of Comments received on the WGIG report, 
the contribution from Israel - which includes reference to terrorism - is 
listed under "other issues not directly addressed in the WGIG report".

To make clear how imprecise and arbitrary the paragraph is, we want to 
read it to you again with a minor change, just exchanging “internet” with 
another public infrastructure:

“We underline the importance of countering the manifestations of terrorism 
at all its forms in the streets. In particular, we condemn the use of the 
streets for purposes of financing of terrorist acts, radicalization 
towards terrorist acts, recruitment for terrorist acts, and glorification 
of terrorist acts that may incite further terrorist acts.”

Would you really want a paragraph like that in a UN summit declaration on 
traffic and public transport?