U.N. Defends Having Tech Summit in Tunisia
By Nick Wadhams
September 28, 2005
Newsday 
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-un-tunisia-summit,0,781259.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
 

UNITED NATIONS -- Facing heated protest, the United Nations on Wednesday defended Tunisia's hosting of a U.N. summit about Internet access in the developing world, even though the north African nation has been repeatedly accused of rights abuses that include blocking Web sites it dislikes. 

Earlier this week, a coalition of human rights groups known as the Tunisia Monitoring Group issued a report that declared Tunisia unfit to hold the World Summit on the Information Society, set for November, because of reports that the government has stepped up attacks on the press and civil society. 

The group, which has frequently criticized the selection of Tunisia as the host country, said the government has blocked access to Web sites belonging to Reporters Without Borders, other human rights watchdogs, and the independent press, while police monitor e-mails and Internet cafes. 

It does question to some extent the U.N.'s credibility that a world summit on the information society is taking place in a society where access to some Web sites is restricted, said Alexis Krikorian, of the International Publishers' Association. It's amazing that such a summit would take place in a country like this. 

Krikorian said that the Tunisia Monitoring Group had tried to raise its concerns in a meeting Monday on the sidelines of a Geneva preparatory conference. But as panelists spoke, representatives of Tunisian non-governmental groups at the event stood up and shouted them down. 

Tunisia proposed the summit in 1998, and member states of the U.N. communications agency, the International Telecommunications Union, agreed to hold it in two parts -- in Geneva in 2003, and then in Tunis this November. The decision was endorsed in 2002 by the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly, and no nation has ever raised formal objections. 

The International Telecommunications Union, which is organizing the event, said it was obliged to carry out decisions by its member states. Those nations would be the ones to decide to hold the summit elsewhere, spokeswoman Francine Lambert said. 

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said the summit could help pressure President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia has long been accused of human rights abuses, while Ben Ali, who took power in a bloodless palace coup in 1987, has repeatedly won landslide electoral victories tainted by charges of fraud. 

These kinds of international conferences can be beneficial to the people in the country hosting them, Dujarric said. It opens up the country to the outside world and such a spotlight of attention gives the government strong incentives to try to meet international standards, including on human rights. 

Dujarric said that at the time Tunisia was selected, countries had wanted a developing nation to host the summit as a way of showing the importance of bringing Internet access to the developing world. He would not say if the United Nations or Annan had urged Tunisia to curb abuses ahead of the summit. 

Rights groups have said that abuses have only gotten worse in Tunisia in recent months. The Tunisia Monitoring Group's latest report documented a serious deterioration of the situation there. It cited harassment of journalists and questions about the independence of Tunisia's judiciary. 

The report cited the case of a lawyer and rights activist named Mohamed Abbou, who was jailed in April after he wrote an article a year ago equating Tunisia's abuse of political prisoners with American treatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 

Tunisian officials at the country's U.N. mission in New York either refused to comment or were unavailable. Ambassador Ali Hachani was in meetings, his secretary said, while a Tunisian diplomat helping prepare for the summit refused to discuss the issue. 

But a senior Tunisian government official in Tunis, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to talk with the media, said Abbou was jailed for attacking another lawyer and rejected the group's other claims about restricted Web access and freedom of the press. 

Earlier this month, the Tunisian government issued a statement saying it has made an irreversible commitment to respecting human rights since Ben Ali took power in 1987. That statement came in response to European Union concerns over allegations that Tunisia's courts were obstructing the work of a domestic human rights group. 

The summit has attracted several international sponsors, including Samsung, Microsoft, Alcatel and Ericsson. 

The summit Web site includes a message in which Ben Ali calls the summit an opportunity to help bridge the digital divide and bring about an Information Society that is balanced and accessible to all. 
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