[kictanet] Anti-Shutdown Policy and Human Rights
waudo siganga
emailsignet at mailcan.com
Thu May 25 13:13:19 EAT 2017
How about a proposal to refer these people who abuse human rights to
existing institutons like the Hague? Just a thought.
W.
On Thu, May 25, 2017, at 12:42 PM, Andrew Alston wrote:
> Waudo,
>
> As we have stated as the authors – we KNOW the punitive measures in
> the policy are flawed and draconian – and we don’t expect the policy
> to pass in it’s current form. What we want from this policy is to
> generate more and more debate until we come up with ways that WILL
> work that don’t have the same level of collateral damage. The policy
> in the form it is in is meant to generate discussion and debate to
> finding the real solution – and without putting anything in there –
> the debate would never have gotten to where it is now.>
> So yes, we know the current policy is flawed – but we are hoping as
> time goes on and the debate rages that we will find solutions that
> will have the same effect and these shutdowns will end.>
> Andrew
>
>
> From: waudo siganga [mailto:emailsignet at mailcan.com] Sent: 25 May 2017
> 12:39 To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>; Andrew
> Alston via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re:
> [kictanet] Anti-Shutdown Policy and Human Rights>
> Thanks.
> 13.2 Entities to which this policy applies
> a. The actions specified in section 13.3 shall apply to the
> government of the country in which the shutdown is occurring, and
> to any entities in which the state holds greater than 50%
> shareholding.> I am not really an expert on the intersection between human rights and
> technology so I can only make a general comment: if resources for
> government internet services are denied is it not the ordinary citizen
> (the human who requires his/her rights to be observed) who suffers?
> Think e.g. of e-government services.>
>
> Waudo
>
>
> On Thu, May 25, 2017, at 11:00 AM, Andrew Alston wrote:
>> Sure,
>>
>> The actual revised policy document can be found here:
>>
>> https://afrinic.net/en/community/policy-development/policy-proposals/2127-anti-shutdown-02>>
>> The human rights declaration that is referred to can be found here:>>
>> http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> From: waudo siganga [mailto:emailsignet at mailcan.com] Sent: 25 May
>> 2017 10:38 To: Andrew Alston via kictanet
>> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> Cc: Andrew Alston
>> <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Anti-
>> Shutdown Policy and Human Rights>>
>> Hi Andrew - could you share the document with Kictanet list? I
>> personally have not seen it.>>
>> W.
>>
>>
>> On Thu, May 25, 2017, at 10:06 AM, Andrew Alston via kictanet wrote:>>> For me, in Art 12 the word "correspondence" should be replaced with
>>> "communication" which is wider and more encompassing, more so when
>>> it comes to protection of human rights and matters ICT;>>> Agreed on the above point, but we have to work with what we’ve got J
>>> Though it would be good to see the declaration of human rights
>>> updated to reflect this.>>> On Art 19 in my opinion, it should be indicated that you can
>>> exercise that freedom subject to your observance of the right of
>>> others to protection against unbridled publication of personal
>>> opinions. In other words you cannot publish false and defamatory
>>> material against me in the name of exercising your freedom of
>>> expression/media.>>> Agreed – and this is covered in Article 29.3 – which is covered “In
>>> the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject
>>> only to such limitations as are determined by low solely for the
>>> purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and
>>> freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirement of mortality,
>>> public order and general welfare in a democratic society”>>> On Art 20, the interpretation of the Higher German Court was right
>>> in my view. Assembling in the current era of IT advancements must be
>>> taken to encompass online assemblies. Indeed people are daily
>>> "assembling" more on social media than physical assembling.>>> Again – agreed – though the debate about distributed denial of
>>> service is a tricky one – because it has collateral damage and if
>>> the denial of service were to take place against a blogging site for
>>> example, it would run afoul of the clauses in Article 19.>>>
>>> Obviously I’m not a lawyer – but these are my interpretations, and
>>> I’d love to hear legal analysis on this>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> On 25 May 2017 08:07, "Andrew Alston via kictanet"
>>> <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> As some of you may have seen – the latest draft of the anti-
>>>> shutdown policy has been published on the AFRINIC lists.>>>>
>>>> While once again, the authors need to draw attention to the fact
>>>> that we know that the policy isn’t perfect – and we know that it
>>>> still needs a lot of revision before it can ever become reality, we
>>>> still hope that the dialog created by the policy will continue to
>>>> spur the debate until real solutions can be found. As we have said
>>>> in other forums, we also believe that the timing is right for this
>>>> debate, especially since there are limited places on the continent
>>>> where this debate could be held where the debate itself would not
>>>> get instantly shut down – and Kenya is one of those places, since
>>>> the Kenyan government has shown a willingness to dialog and discuss
>>>> when compared to certain other places.>>>>
>>>> There are however some interesting parts in the new draft which I
>>>> thought I’d elaborate on a little bit, specifically the fact that
>>>> in the introduction paragraph, we have opted to make reference to
>>>> the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My thanks to the
>>>> individuals who contributed and drew our attention to certain parts
>>>> of this.>>>>
>>>> Specifically – I thought that for the sake of discussion, I’d point
>>>> out certain things here and see what the rest of the KictaNet
>>>> community thought about the interpretation we are using when we
>>>> apply these clauses to our thinking.>>>>
>>>> So, firstly, Article 12 reads “No one shall be subjected to
>>>> arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or
>>>> correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation.
>>>> Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such
>>>> interference or attacks.”>>>>
>>>> Now, the most interesting part of that is where it reads “or
>>>> correspondence”, because it can certainly be argued that internet
>>>> communication is a form of correspondence. Email, whatsapp, social
>>>> media, all of them amount to methods of correspondence between
>>>> individuals.>>>>
>>>> Then, moving to Article 19. “Everyone has the right to freedom of
>>>> opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
>>>> opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart
>>>> information and ideas through any media and regardless of
>>>> frontiers.”>>>>
>>>> Again, the Internet is a form of media – and by stating that
>>>> individuals have the right of expression through any media, this
>>>> can be extrapolated to say that the removal of a form of media in
>>>> an attempt to remove freedom of expression is a violation of the
>>>> declaration of human rights.>>>>
>>>> Finally, moving to Article 20, specifically Article 20.1, it reads:
>>>> “(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and
>>>> association.”>>>>
>>>> This is probably the most contentious assertion – can a virtual
>>>> online meeting place be considered an assembly and hence protected
>>>> under this right. I did a fair amount of research into this and
>>>> there is some very interesting case law about this.>>>>
>>>> Specifically – In 2001, a guy called Andreas-Thomas Vogel ran a
>>>> website in Germany that called for action against Lufthansa
>>>> Airlines (basically denial of service) – he was arrested on charges
>>>> of coercion, and initially a lower court in Frankfurt found him
>>>> guilty, primarily due to the economic losses suffered by Lufthana
>>>> Airlines during the online campaign. However, on appeal, a higher
>>>> court overturned this ruling, stating that the online demonstration
>>>> did not constitute a show of force, but was intended to the
>>>> influence public opinion – effectively stating that online
>>>> demonstrations were both a legitimate form of protest and real.
>>>> Effectively, the attack that was encouraged was viewed as a form of
>>>> virtual sit-in against the airline. A Libertad spokesperson then
>>>> went on to say “Althought it is virtual in nature, the Internet is
>>>> still a real public space”>>>>
>>>> Now, obviously, that’s in Germany and not in a lot of other
>>>> countries, indeed in the US, under the CPAA they have taken a
>>>> completely opposite approach to things like denial of service –
>>>> however, it does raise an interesting question. If you can in fact
>>>> have a virtual sit-in online – then it stands to reason that the
>>>> right of peaceful assembly extends to the virtual world – and would
>>>> include virtual assembly on the Internet – and hence an internet
>>>> shutdown would be a violation of Article 20.1>>>>
>>>> I’d love to see more interpretations and debates on this issue
>>>> though – and I’m hoping to see some debate on this at the PDP
>>>> meeting on Nairobi on the 31st – all of you are welcome at that PDP
>>>> meeting by the way, at the Boma Hotel, starting at 9am and running
>>>> through to 5:30pm where we will be debating a whole range of
>>>> policies including the anti-shutdown policy.>>>>
>>>> Hope to see you all there!
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>>
>>>>
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>>> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder
>>> platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT
>>> policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for
>>> reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT
>>> enabled growth and development.>>>
>>> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable
>>> behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's
>>> times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or
>>> personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares
>>> or qualifications.
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