UN Officials Remove Poster Mentioning Chinese Firewall

At a UN-sponsored Internet Governance Forum in Egypt, anti-censorship group Open Net Initiative was startled by a demand from UN officials to remove a poster mentioning Chinese Net censorship. When ONI refused the request, security personnel arrived and took away the poster. The group was promoting a new book, Access Controlled, a survey of Internet censorship, filtering, and online surveillance. A witness said, "The poster was thrown on the floor and we were told to remove it because of the reference to China and Tibet. We refused, and security guards came and removed it. The incident was witnessed by many." Here is a video of the removal.

Comments

The applause is sickening

[Concerned Onlooker]

The video itself was very mild in content. A bunch of people standing around looking at a poster that had been knocked down. But the awful moment came when the guard removed the poster and you can hear people actually clapping. It so reminded me of that quote "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause."

It's good to be owed money!

[NoYob]

"We condemn this undemocratic act of censoring our event just because someone is trying to impress or be in the good graces of the Chinese government.

That's what happens when you owe a lot of money to someone or want some of their money.

Up next: China takes back Taiwan and the US Government does nothing.

Now just remember that when you go to put all those Christmas gifts (Made in China) on your credit card (in a very circuitous route:Financed by China).

Yep! Now who's the Super Power, again?

Re:It's good to be owed money!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's not at all how international trade works. It's more akin to:

1. An American company wishes to buy shitty goods manufactured in China.
2. The American company buys renminbi using American dollars.
3. The American company spends the renminbi to buy the shitty Chinese goods.
4. The Chinese send to America the shitty goods that come broken, or end up breaking soon after.
5. The Chinese have both the dollars and the renminbi, and all the Americans got was some shitty, poorly-manufactured plastic toys.
6. The Chinese use those American dollars, as they still have perceived value in some areas of the world, to buy land, factories, natural resources and other property in Africa.
7. The Americans still just have shitty plastic toys and the Africans have near-worthless currency, but the Chinese have African land, factories, gold, oil, coal, and even people under their control now.

The Americans lost. The Africans lost. The Chinese won.

It has become apparent

[mysidia]

That the UN itself has become an arm of the chinese government, in censoring anti-censorship advocates.

Wake up - China is NOT your friend

[Gothmolly]

When will the rest of the world wake up and realize that China is NOT your friend?

Re:U.N. and Human Rights...

[Anpheus]

And our complete apathy towards the largest international diplomatic body are helping... how?

I mean, at least for citizens of the United States to complain about the UN is almost hilarious. Our previous ambassador wanted nothing more than to tear the whole thing down. Half the nation thinks diplomacy is for little girls and real men point missiles at each other until a vein pops or someone blinks.

If we want to improve it, we need to contribute to the process. If we refuse to contribute, and then someone in the UN does something stupid, or goes against US foreign policy, we have no room to complain.

Your discourse helps no one and all it does is promote a helpless fatalism in international politics.

P.S.: Get over yourself and your conspiracy theories. "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity" should be "never attribute to a massive conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by one middle-manager overreacting." I'm guessing one middle-management-esque official in the UN saw the poster, took unnecessary authority of the situation and demanded that it be taken down. When he didn't get his way he called guards whose job is to listen to higher ups, who did as their job asks without questioning their "boss". And the result was a petty diplomatic incident wherein someone overreached and may even get punished for acting hastily and calling yet more attention to Chinese censorship.

Re:But hey...

[Idiomatick]

Devil's Advocate here:

- You don't know what this has to do with UN policy, it could be a cautious guard that doesn't want anyone rocking the boat during the group. Seems decently reasonable.
- I saw no other posters at the convention. The poster could have been wildly inappropriate. If I went to a dinner about abortion methods for doctors where the topic was to discuss efficient safe methods. And I brought a big ass jesus loves your baby poster to the event it sure as hell would get taken down.
- Maybe the guard was an idiot... Who knocks a poster onto the floor? Taking it away makes sense, so fine do that. But the fact that the guy knocked it onto the floor hints that he was a bit of a nutter. Which would point to him not being the absolute representative of the UN.
- Do try to apply occam's razor.

Anyone else want to play devils advocate with me. The raw emotional responses on /. are a bit worrisome. Lets not all jump to conclusions out of how bad this COULD be.