Ben Ali (L) and Swiss President Schmid listen to UN Secretary-General Annan during the closing session. (Reuters)
TUNIS, November 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which ended Friday, November 18, with a pledge to expand the availability of the Internet, has turned the spotlight onto a dispute about censorship.
"The objective of this summit is to have an equitable information society where everybody can have access to information, can create information" and also disseminate it, said Yoshio Utsumi, head of the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU), reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Chinese vice premier Huang Ju told the summit that some Internet restrictions were warranted to protect the state, although China wanted to "guarantee freedom of speech."
"For the Internet, we need effective measures to fight against criminal acts using this technology as well as economic fraud, violence, terrorism and anything that harms state security," he said.
China recently obliged Internet search engine Yahoo to hand over data that would allow it to track down a journalist who was critical of the authorities.
The summit drew to a close Friday with a pledge to drive the IT revolution into poor countries and promote the expansion of the Internet.
After attracting 176 countries and more than 17,000 participants, the three-day event endorsed a "Tunis Commitment", and a "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society".
The three-day event also saw an agreement to broaden discussions about control of the Internet over the next five years.
National Security Guise
Ebadi attends a meeting with human rights activists in Tunis, who went on hunger strike. (Reuters)
Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali also denounced the use of the Internet in a manner that "destabilized national security, shook confidence and created a credibility problem."
But Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, who was invited to the summit as a representative for civil society groups, used her keynote speech to launch a warning about the dangers of censorship.
"Certain governments in the name of national security, combating moral corruption... install filters to the Internet... preventing people from having access to the information they need and to have their voice heard outside," the Iranian lawyer and activist said.
"Even worse, they tend to suppress authors who express any kind of criticism of their governments," she added, calling for a UN-supervised committee to monitor such suppression.
The French press freedom group Reporters sans Frontiers (RSF) unfurled a banner at the summit condemning 15 countries labelled "enemies of the Internet".
"We wanted to show the black holes of the Web," said RSF spokesman Jean-Francois Julliard, underlining the power that authorities have over Internet access providers.
The group listed Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
'Illegitimate Summit'
Ben Ali came under harsh criticism over his country's poor rights record. (Reuters)
The Tunisian leader faced a vitriol from rights groups like Amnesty International for his country's poor rights record, saying that Tunis was an "unlikely sitting" for the UN summit.
The  World Summit on the Information Society, organized by the International Telecommunication Union, concluded on Friday evening, November 18th, in Tunis, the capital of the north African nation of Tunisia. The event's organizers intended for the event to "put into motion" the plan for Internet financing and governance developed at the 2003 WSIS summit in Geneva, Switzerland.

The summit was marred by criticism of Tunisia for allowing attacks on journalists and human rights defenders to occur in the days leading up to the event. A French journalist for "Libération" was stabbed and beaten by unidentified men after he reported on local human rights protesters. A Belgian television crew was harassed and forced to hand over footage of Tunisian dissidents, while local human rights defenders were roughed up and prevented from organising a meeting with international civil society groups. A representative from the French media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, was prevented from disembarking from his Air France flight to Tunis to attend the summit.

''Expression Under Repression panel at WSIS in Tunis.Source: Rebecca MacKinnon''

During the event, representatives from the Global Voices project were menaced by the Tunisian police as they held their session on "Expression Under Repression." Speaking at the session were Rebecca MacKinnon, Ethan Zuckerman, Nart Villeneuve, Taurai Maduna, Isaac Mao, and Hossein Derakshan, among others. The  interaction with the Tunisian police is related by Amanda Michel of the Berkman Center with the description from an attendee as, "Before the break, a phalanx of secret police (ie scary guys in dark suits) showed up. They filled the hall outside the room, forcing cancellation of the break for fear that we'd not be allowed to re-start."

Nicholas Negroponte demonstrated the first working prototype of his $100 laptop.