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Disruption of communica-ch meeting
http://www.worldsummit2003.de/en/web/795.htm
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Relatively typical example of the Tunisification of the UN. Special only
because it shows a WSIS secretariat official participating in disruption,
not just the usual trouble-makers.
video  http://www.worldsummit2003.de/download_en/Moncef_Achour_prepcom3.AVI
Download letter to secretariat for detailed account.

I gather this meeting was held privately because the human rights caucus
could not meet publicly without participants getting personally attacked.

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Community Media Working Group Meetings impossible
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The community media working group is the only (if narrow) platform for Œour
media¹ type organizations at the WSIS, and has been rather successful in
pushing community radio so far (coordination list:
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/cm).

However, it cannot meet anymore, as the convenor is being followed and
hassled for his open criticism of the host government. An attempted meeting
at PrepCom3 was flooded with people who admitted to knowing nothing about
community media (They thought ³community² referred to ³European Community²!)
But they refused to leave, and continued talking loudly and off-topic. (The
same people and techniques as in most other civil society meetings.)

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Should we fight united with 'their media' ?
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Under these circumstances, strange bedfellowships emerge:

http://campaigns.ifex.org/tmg/news.html

ŒTheir media¹  (including our traditional non-friends, the world press
freedom committee) and Œour¹ community media champion AMARC fight together
for ³freedom of expression² in the host country.

Forgotten the battle fought in the media caucus until recently: 'their
freedom¹ vs 'ours,' corporate rights vs communication rights, their media vs
ours. Perhaps not a bad thing to fight together against censorship? An
important strategic alliance? If the fight is won and this authoritarian
government eases up on censorship and media control, perhaps the corporate
media and professional journalists will remember us as friends and fighters
for a common cause? This seems to be the AMARC strategy. Though history
gives us little reason for optimism...

So back to square one, the freedom of journalists and private media? And
hope we will get a slice of the freedom pie later? There has to be a better
way.

We started to revive the discussion on the role of our media in a renewed
media democratization agenda. Let's continue this overdue task in the
ourmedia network.

Gabi