WSIS Prepcom II Recommendations by Reporters Sans Frontieres
(RSF) to Protect Freedom of Expression Online
WSIS : World Summit on the Information Society - bloggers and
cyber-dissidents offer advice A preparatory meeting for the World
Summit on the Information Society began on 17 February in Geneva.
Reporters Without Borders is there with a delegation of cyber-dissidents
and bloggers in order to put a face to the repression against
Internet users in some of the countries that will be parading
at this conference, and in order to present five recommendations
for online free expression.
The Reporters Without Borders delegation attending the preparatory
meeting:
- Zouhair Yahyaoui (Tunisia, the country hosting the second stage
of the WSIS) was imprisoned from 4 June 2002 to 18 November 2003
for making fun of President Ben Ali on his website, Tunezine.com.
He received the Reporters Without Borders Cyber-Freedom Prize
in June 2003.
- Ibrahim Lutfy (Maldives) was arrested in January 2002 for helping
to produce Sandhaanu, an electronic newsletter about President
Gayoom's human rights violations. He escaped from prison in May
2003 and has since lived in Switzerland, where he has been granted
political asylum.
- Cai Chongguo (China), a philosophy professor and political dissident,
had to flee his country after the Tiananmen Square massacres.
He has been given asylum in France, where he is studying the system
of online censorship that has been introduced in China.
- Jay Bakht (Iran) is a founding member of Penlog, a group of
Iranian bloggers. He lives in Britain, where he fights for the
release of imprisoned bloggers and campaigns against the Iranian
government's Internet filtering policies.
Reporters Without Borders' five recommendations for online free
expression:
1. Any law about the flow of information online must be anchored
in freedom of expression as defined in Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
2. Internet users alone must decide what material they can and
wish to access online.Automatic filtering of online content, by
governments or private firms, is unacceptable. Filters must only
be installed by Internet users themselves and only on their personal
connection. Any policy of
higher-level (national or even local) filtering conflicts with
the principle of the free flow of information.
3. A decision to shut down a website, even an illegal one, must
not in any circumstances be taken by the site's host or any other
technical provider of Internet services. Only a judge can ban
an online publication. A technical service provider cannot therefore
be held criminally or civilly responsible for any illegal material
posted on a hosted website unless the service provider refuses
to obey a ruling by an impartial and independent court.
4. A government's civil or criminal powers are limited to content
hosted on its territory or specifically aimed at the country's
Internet users.
5. The editors of online publications, including bloggers and
those running personal sites, must have the same protection and
be shown the same consideration as professional journalists since,
like them, they exercise a basic freedom, that of freedom of expression.
French:
Les cinq recommandations de Reporters sans frontières concernant
la liberté d'expression sur Internet:
1- Toute législation touchant à la circulation de
l'information sur Internet doit être fondée sur le
principe de la liberté d'expression comme définie
à l'article 19 de la Déclaration universelle des
droits de l'homme.
2- Seul l'internaute peut décider des informations auxquelles
il peut et souhaite accéder sur la Toile. Le filtrage a
priori des contenus circulant sur le Réseau, que ce soit
par un Etat ou un opérateur privé, n'est pas une
solution acceptable. Par conséquent, les systèmes
de filtrage ne peuvent être installés qu'à
l'initiative de l'internaute et au niveau de sa connexion personnelle.
Toute politique de filtrage à un niveau supérieur
- national ou même local - va à l'encontre du principe
de libre circulation de l'information.
3- La décision de fermer un site web, même illégal,
ne doit en aucun cas être prise par un hébergeur,
ou par tout autre prestataire technique de l'Internet. Seul un
juge peut décider de l'interdiction d'une publication en
ligne. Par conséquent, un prestataire technique de l'Internet
ne peut voir sa responsabilité pénale ou civile
engagée du fait d'avoir hébergé un contenu
illicite, sauf s'il a refusé d'exécuter une décision
judiciaire rendue par un tribunal impartial et indépendant.
4- La compétence juridictionnelle d'un Etat, en matière
civile ou pénale, s'exerce exclusivement sur les contenus
hébergés sur son territoire ou s'adressant spécifiquement
à ses internautes.
5- Les responsables de publications en ligne, y compris les webloggers
et les responsables de sites personnels, doivent bénéficier
des mêmes protections et des mêmes égards que
les journalistes professionnels puisque, comme eux, ils mettent
en œuvre une liberté fondamentale :
la liberté d'expression.
Read the cyber-dissidents' accounts of their experiences »
February 2005
