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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.
Anyone who thinks the U.N. exists in any way to help with human rights is insane. All you have to do is look at the list of nations on the U.S. Human Rights panel...
The U.N. exists to exert and expand U.N. control, wherever possible (just like any large organization, government or otherwise). Helping people is at best a secondary motive and sometimes not even not even a motive at all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I can. Unfortunately, it looks like kdawson can't.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Internet_blackholes_en.png
The UN prefers the interests of member governments over western ideals? I'm shocked! Shocked!
Seriously, imagine the Republican Party leadership, and/or the Democratic Party leadership, if they never had to stand for elections. How much would they care about our interests? Now, remember that most of the UN doesn't belong to our culture either. Why would a bunch of government employees, mostly from dictatorships of one kind or another, be opposed to censorship?
-- Support a free market in the field of government
from the can-you-spell-hypocricy dept
Well, someone here obviously cannot...
Posted by kdawson on 23:04 15th November, 2009
That explains it, I guess.
There are three ways to expand one's power:
1. Convince people to give you power.
2. Trade for it, which requires having something to trade.
3. Use violence or the threat thereof to get people to do what you want.
The UN doesn't have anything useful for #2, and "you and what army" for #3. #1 is the only option left to them, and sovereign nations are not very easy to convince to give up their power (except, maybe, for post-National Europe).
-- Support a free market in the field of government
If it exists to exert and expand UN control, it's doing an utterly terrible job of it.
We are all lucky that the natural state of bureaucrats is one of ineptness.
But the U.N. is doing a lot more behind the scenes than you realize, the recent inter-nation secret copyright treaty is one facet of that... people here care a lot about copyright issues which is why you know about it, but how many OTHER similar secret multi-national treaties are being drafted that you and I know nothing about?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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."
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
"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?
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
That the UN itself has become an arm of the chinese government, in censoring anti-censorship advocates.
Prove it.
No, i wasn't kidding. One of the dangers of having governmental entities in control of information, and most of it being recorded only digitally: "facts" are a variable commodity.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That's not made clear in the article.
Also, it was very odd the way everyone stood around the poster on the floor, not touching it or picking it up, as though it were a diseased, dead body which no one was willing to touch. So they called the police to come an take it away.
Why didn't the folks promoting the book just stand it up again, I wonder?
The closer you are to the code, the happier you are. - Ancient Geek Proverb
When will the rest of the world wake up and realize that China is NOT your friend?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Is it at all possible that rather than it being "anti-censorship", it was simply that they didn't want someone trying to hawk merchandise? Is it possible that the witness jumped to a conclusion and filled in the details for what he thought was a reason?
I noticed in the video that the room didn't have any other posters advertising anything.
"We condemn this undemocratic act of censoring our event... "
The UN is a democratic organization and this act of censorship is completely democratic. It's wrong, but democratic.
That should be a lesson to those that confuse freedom and democracy.
malls cops won't let you set up a stand in a mall... unless you pay rent and sign an agreement.
Maybe these guys didn't do that.
Devil's Advocate here:
/. are a bit worrisome. Lets not all jump to conclusions out of how bad this COULD be.
- 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 you freaking kidding me? In France, you can't even wear a small catholic cross around your neck to a public school, unless it's well hidden under your shirt. And in both France and Germany, books like "Mein Kampf" and so-called nazi paraphernalia are banned (not that this does any good mind you, it only makes the extreme right feel more victimized and it drove that kind of market for that stuff underground).
And in France at least, there is an unspoken understanding between the press and the government. You don't say anything to embarrass government officials, and you get to keep your job. In France, the government has so much influence over every area of life, it make life very difficult if any of its citizen gets out of line. By the way, I know this because I'm French, I was born in France, and I've lived part of my life in France.
A few years ago, as a student, I got to go visit the UN's Geneva campus, sponsored by one of the various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that has a presence at the UN. While I was there, I got to go sit in on one of the meetings regarding the formation of the Human Rights Commission. (Committee? Council? I can't remember.) During the meeting, representatives from one of the other NGOs in attendance started to hand out flyers encouraging action in Darfur.
The representative from Sudan was not pleased with this, to say the least, and demanded they cease distributing the flyers. The NGO in question was informed that they were not to do that, and that they'd be removed if they continued to do so.
The UN is a farce when it comes to doing anything useful about human rights.
I smell bullshit. Let's take a closer look at that document shall we?
-> sharia takes precedence over human rights, and the declaration cannot be understood except as a summary of sharia
Wrong. It actually states that such rights are integral to Islam and the document is in accordance with Shaira, not that Shaira takes precedence or that it is a mere summary.
-> women can not choose whether to marry, nor to whom
Wrong. Nowhere does it state this, though it does state "Men and women have the right to marriage, and no restrictions stemming from race, colour or nationality shall prevent them from enjoying this right."
-> women are not equal to men, and have "duties" to perform
Possibly. Article 6(a): "Woman is equal to man in human dignity, and has rights to enjoy as well as duties to perform; she has her own civil entity and financial independence, and the right to retain her name and lineage." You are wrong on equality not being mentioned, but right on the duties, but to be fair men are tasked with duties too.
-> discrimination on the basis of religion is, in fact allowed
Wrong. From Article 1(a): "All men are equal in terms of basic human dignity and basic obligations and responsibilities, without any discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, language, sex, religious belief, political affiliation, social status or other considerations."
-> any action that might in any way convince a muslim to become either atheist or other faith, is punishable by death (yes, might, you read that correctly)
Possibly. Article 10: "Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion or to atheism." It mentions a prohibition, not a death sentence.
-> muslims have the duty (not the right, the duty) to use any amount of violence if there are any non-muslim members of government
Wrong. I'm not sure where you get this from. The closest is Article 23(b): "Everyone shall have the right to participate, directly or indirectly in the administration of his country's public affairs. He shall also have the right to assume public office in accordance with the provisions of Shari'ah." Was this what you meant? Where is the duty to violence?
-> any expression of speech that leads to "weakening of faith" is punishable by death, as is anything that could (not would, could) undermine governmental authority
Wrong. From the quote I assume you mean Article 22(c): "Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith. " Nothing there about death or governmental authority.
So I think I'll call this myth busted. Try reading something before spouting off hyperbole about it.
Right, whereas the "Free Press" in the USA is reknowned for its pioneering investigative work into Government. Oh no, wait, they're pretty much lackeys to the White House Press Office (and have been since Reagan). You can slander the non-US Press if you like, but at least they told the truth about the rush to war in Iraq.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Everyone knows that FOX news and Rush Limbaugh are to be compared with the National inquirer when it comes to news.
That's roughly accurate, although saying "everybody knows" is silly. Now, do you realize that CNN and MSNBC, and yes, even NPR, are no better? Or do you think they're magically better because they correspond more closely to your beliefs?
Well, at least CNN and MSNBC don't just flat-out lie about the facts, report their own talking-heads points of view as news, or copy any political party's press releases as their own news reports the way Fox News does. From the looks of it, quite frankly, you'd think that Olbermann's and Maddow's teams do better fact checking than the Fox News newsroom does. Either that or Fox News newsroom simply ignore the results of their fact checking when it doesn't support the story they want to run, which quite often seems to be the case when they report on politics. Incompetents or liars, that's Fox News, take your pick.
My sig will be released in 2015 third quarter. Rating pending.
I'm actually quite impressed with the French approach to religion in public. Either everybody can show their religion freely, or nobody can. Compare and contrast with the UK, where there have been instances of nurses being told to remove any and all religious symbology... oh, unless you're muslim, in which case headscarves are fine. Oh, and jews are cool with the skullcap. Whilst we're at it, sikhs can all wear turbans. In fact, just take off any christian symbols.
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?