“Iftar bower in the Fourth Courtyard of the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Turkey 001” by Moonik – Own work. Licenced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe 9th annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held from 2-5 September 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey. A parallel event is being organised by Turkish and international civil society organisations called the “Internet Ungovernance Forum” (IUF) held from 4-5 September 2014.
APC supports the IGF and our participation includes several activities related to securing a free, fair and open internet. We believe that the IGF is the appropriate forum for discussing issues of internet censorship and blocking and we applaud the many workshops and sessions tackling these issues at the 2014 IGF. That the IGF is hosted in a country where several incidences of censorship and blocking took place in the last year, makes this a particularly relevant topic.
APC also supports the IUF as an additional space for dialogue. Efforts to include the concerns of Turkish civil society in the 2014 IGF were not fully successful and we therefore welcome and support the IUF as it provides an alternative space that will give these conerns the focus they deserve. “The problem,” says IUF organiser Ahmet Sabancı, “is that the perpetrators of the major problems facing the open internet, governments and corporations, have credibility in this space that they don’t deserve.”
At the same time, full participation at the IGF is crucial and APC believes that the two events can in fact reinforce one another.
Along with APC, organisations that have declared support for the IUF include Article 19, Access, Web Foundation and European Digital Rights. Workshops submissions are open for topics such as surveillance, censorship, legislation, freedom of expression, net neutrality, women’s rights, the digital divide and internet governance.
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About the Association for Progressive Communications
The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network and non-profit organisation founded in 1990 that wants everyone to have access to a free and open internet to improve lives and create a more just world.
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Mallory Knodel
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mallory@apc.org
Tel: +1-514-573-6340
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