Foreign Ministers to Meet and Discuss Internet Freedom Issues

The Foreign Ministers of twenty states will meet in Paris in October and then later this year in the Netherlands to agree on common measures that would strengthen freedom of expression on the Internet. These conferences have been decided during a meeting in Paris held last week.

A meeting on the Internet and freedom of expression took place on 8th of July in Paris at the initiative of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Dutch counterpart Maxime Verhagen. Held at the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the meeting brought together the representatives of 17 governments, as well as those of several NGOs, international organizations and companies.

One of the main issues discussed was the growing Internet censorship efforts observed around the world, especially in countries governed by authoritarian regimes. "Measures are needed," said Mr. Verhagen, who opened the conference. "Authoritarian regimes restrict access to the Internet, censor the content, and even use it to prosecute citizens for their views. But free speech applies everywhere, including on the Internet," he stressed.

The sixty participants agreed on a number of objectives, including improving the process of monitoring every state's commitments to protect the freedom of expression on the Internet. It was also a general consensus that the accountability of companies who's technologies get misused by governments to endanger Internet freedom should be increased.

The cases of Cisco, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google, who were accused by the U.S. Congress in 2006 that they were “decapitating the voice of dissidents” in exchange of better business opportunities in China is an example of this type of technology misuse. Another objective drawn during the discussions was to come up with better solutions to help and protect people who are persecuted for speaking freely on the Internet.

In order to further discuss and coordinate the initiatives needed to reach these objectives two more conferences will be organized specifically for foreign ministers. The first will take place in Paris in October, while the other will be held in the Netherlands before the end of the year. The exact location and date for the second will be established at a later date.

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