>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Good morning, friends and colleagues. We think we should start. We're already 10 minutes behind schedule. First, let me welcome you to this roundtable. Apologies we couldn't make the table round, but hopefully it will be quite interactive nonetheless. I also would like to thank you for your decision to join this meeting rather than one of the other very interesting options available on the IGF program. I would be the moderator for this. Just to give you some background, the African Declaration on African rights and freedom was developed by a coalition of Africans as a way to guide the creation of a positive rights base Internet policy environment in Africa. It's been developed in the context of the African continent where access to the Internet is growing very rapidly. We now have millions of citizens in the country across the continent getting online finding their voices on social media as well as various other online and digital tools. In those discussions and debates, they are venturing into areas that previously didn't find other folks talking about issues of governance, of democratic performance of political leaders and so on. And this is creating a very scary environment for political leaders across the continent and that has triggered a sort to dry and regulate the online environment and space. As political leaders and authorities moving to the online environment, the declaration that has been developed which we'll be talking around today, sits to promote human rights and standards and principles of Internet policies. This has been formulated and we hope it will be implemented in a way that would open up the online space. They also have relative principles that quote human rights and peoples rights on the Internet. A lot of these issues and other relevant issues would be discussed by the very distinguished speakers we have on the Round Table and I will proceed to introduce them very shortly. Before I do that, let me very quickly explain the format for this discussion. As I said, we want to have a very interactive conversation. We do not want lectures. We do not want long speeches. We have 12 speakers. 12 of them are not yet in the room but I think that they will be joining us later on. I will explain subsequently. We will have an opportunity to make some remarks on irrelevant topical things for about 5 minutes which should take us a total of 25 minutes. I hope my mathematics still works. I think that should be about 5 minutes and I think that should leave us with ample time to have a real conversation. Following the initial remarks by the speakers would then invite participants to present their views under the declaration itself on the pressed issues in question. I think those who have not had a chance previously to read them should be able to quickly scan through them, but you will get more information as we proceed.
We know there's a great deal of knowledge and participants outside the designated speakers. So we're also looking for a way to draw on these experiences. So we would be requesting the speakers whenever they wish to also pose questions to participants as a way of tapping into that knowledge on the other side of the room. So please feel free to ask questions and participants can fit into.
Now to quick introduce us, the gentleman to my right, I think he's the only gentleman to my right
[Laughter]
is Mr. McCain in the United Nations for Africa which is based in Ethiopia. In this capacity, he is for the promotion of knowledge and societies in general. In particular, content and information systems development, knowledge management and the development of knowledge of works and communities of practice as well as promoting tools for access to knowledge in Africa. He has four years of experience in ICT forever development and information management with 25 of these years spent at the U.N. economic commission for Africa. He's also the President of the united nations unions and associations. So you can see he's a big man as we say in Nigeria. Then to my extreme left is Nnenna Nwakanma.
In the real world, she's the coordinator for the world wide web foundation. She works with collaborations in Africa and has a particular (inaudible) are alliance of the world Internet as well as the web on campaign which some of you may be familiar with, if not all of you. She's also heavily involved in driving, the open data agenda crossed Africa. In recent years, she's ‑‑ she's been involved in many faces of the U.S. African information site initiative. She's worked in five African countries. She's also a (inaudible) and she's fluent in English and French and a number of African languages.
To my left, we have (inaudible). He has implemented projects in various institutions including Microsoft where he spent a lot of money, (inaudible) investing and two leadership fellow. He's a member of the United Nations committee on youth and ICT. In 2006, he was appointed as the youngest member of the presidential task force on the restructuring of the Nigerian technology and telecommunications sector. He sits on the regional, national and the ICDT sectors. To my immediate right is Lillian who is President of the Nigerian policy. As a policy associate, she's contributed to ICT policy in Uganda and east Africa. She facilitates and coordinates workshops including coordinates in the east Africa governance and the Uganda Internet governance. She has hands‑on experience in information technology and projects management. She's interested in linking communications technologies to improving (inaudible) and I hope she will start with mine so that I can (inaudible). Unfortunately, we don't have Efron. She just walked into the room. At least he's still walking. Thank you for trying to make it nonetheless.
Miss Policy Analyst accesses now working on the connection between Internet policy and human rights. He's also a member of the U.S. in 2015 group on Internet governance. The freedom online coalition digital development and openness working group serves as the interest in the committee for the youth in the Internet governance. Efron has worked on youth engagement. We have to my extreme right I will re49 from using some of the (inaudible). She leaves the policy work in Africa for the progressive communications APC not the political team.
This is in South Africa. She's related to ITC policy development and has been engaged in expanding from different approaches at national and regional levels in Africa. Most research work including management and engagement in governance forum in 2010. The African schools on Internet governance, the launch of the best African governance in 2012 and then the initiative on the African Declaration on Internet rights and freedoms. In 2012, Amilla was appointed by the Internet society and forum ambassador. She has high excellence and address her. She continues to advocate for innovative to spectrum use and management as a means of extending access and securing and depending for human rights on the Internet. (inaudible) session because he is a speak or two sessions going outside is (inaudible) who many of you may know is a professor of law at the California (inaudible) and is currently united nations special promotion and protection of right of freedom of opinion and expression. We've had a tough negotiation and I agreed he would spend the first 45 minutes in that session. And that's about 9:45 when he will join us. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
So having done the introductions, I will now invite everyone to open the discussions. I will try to be very brutal in my moderation. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Mr. Moderator. To start, I will just put a bit of emphasis on why we do need an African Declaration and rights to freedom. The right to freedom is guaranteed at the international at African levels such as universal declaration of human rights and international covenant on civil and political rights. The convention for human rights and fundamental freedoms and chapter on human (inaudible) and African convention on cyber 6 and personal data protection Articles 8, 17 and 25; however, the rapid changes to ICTs experienced since the beginning of the WCIS process have influenced privacy issues with human impact on human rights including in Africa. There is a need for the direction between governor entities and other interested stakeholders in featured deliberations on enhancing trust and privacy in cyber space in order to secure the right to freedom of expression the right of easy is to information and knowledge is out fear without restrictions and limitations. The right of freedom, the right to freedom of opinion and the right to be free from discrimination in all forms. We believe that a tool which would affect taker of this on the continent did not exist. So it was ‑‑ that's why we think that it is time to put in place the declaration on Internet right and freedoms. And in this content, IGF (inaudible) which was organized in September 2015 where we had subject of human rights on the Internet had also discussed thoroughly African Declaration on human rights and freedoms. There was access to the Internet for the full realization of human development and exercise a number of human rights and freedoms including the rights to freedom of expression and access to information, peaceful assembly and association. Access should be prior (inaudible) as part of human development and human rights. Access should also be 113 on the Internet. We believe this declaration is timely and we will talk about its content. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you very much for your additional comments and for keeping to time. I would encourage us to follow your footsteps. May I invite Nnenna from the Internet to share her perspectives.
>> NNENNA NWAKANMA: Hello and good morning. I would like to speak to two things why I believe that the declaration is key. We do access, order of voice order and of participation. And many people may think that technology organization, but we're not a technology organization. We are a development organization and we walk in these three ways. Advocating for access. We believe that access to the Internet should be a human right. I'll say that again. We believe that access to broadband Internet should be a human right. And we believe that the Internet itself should be a common, should be a global good, should be as protected as the air and water. And that is where we come in with what we calm voices. You must have had about what we want. What we want in a very simple manner is this. The rights that people have offline should be applied to them online. So all of our human rights offline should be the same online. In participation in the work we do in the web foundation, we ask governments, we ask entities, we ask the coders to put out data and to empower participation. This year we're looking at sustainable development and the role at Internet governance and Internet as a whole should be playing on this. And it is important for us to note that when we adopted the MDGs, we did not have smart phones. We could not have a capacity to load and load was very limited, but now we have the intent. As SDG is powered by the Internet, it has a greater potential to be achieved and that is where Mr. Chair, this declaration takes meaning for us.
As civil society organization, this is a tool to go home and say if we want to achieved goal this, goal that. We want everyone to have access to the Internet by 2020, especially women. But I want to say if we want everyone to have access to the Internet by 2020, it means we need to relook the principles in country and these are the principles you have in this book. We need to begin to have a change in the way we think about access to the Internet. We need to have a change in the way we think the affordability and the cost of Internet access. We need have a change in policy and the way we look at freedom of information and freedom of expression. So these are the principles that this declaration bring to fall and I believe that a civil society we need this to go home with at national level to input in our strategy for the realization of SDGs. Once again, my name is Nnenna.
I come from the Internet and it's a life and death issue. If you're not my (inaudible), you are on your way. You are following on remote, then you are already there. If you are tweeting about it, the Internet is your life. If you came here on an electronic ticket, it means you are already in the kingdom of Internet people. So it's all about our lives and this brothers and sisters, as I call you, my fellow citizens of the Internet, this will be part of the constitution of our own country. See you online.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you very much, Nnenna. I believe you are also from the Internet.
>> So, Nnenna says this is a matter of life and death.
[Laughter]
So as I speak to you, the national assembly in Nigeria tweeted and this is an irony. So the international assembly in Nigeria tweeted these words and I quote. Let me just paraphrase. I also assembly calls for social media censorship. That's tweeted by the member of the national assembly itself. So when we say that this ‑‑ this is an issue that isn't just in terms of rights to declarations, that it's a serious issue. We're not saying that because we just want to make some words popular. A lot of people have been invited some by the secret service, some arrested in the name of the things they tweeted.
As I speak to you, there are two bloggers in Nigeria who have been victims because of section 24 about the crime of law because of the opinion that powerful people who have access to police found offensive. Now, in the case of libel, you're supposed to prove that someone (inaudible), but these guys don't prove anything. They simply use the security forces they have access to arrest anyone that say something they're not interested in. I think we're discussing Internet rights in Africa because it is cool to do so. But we're discussing this because it is a matter of life and death. Can I tell you a story of a young man back home. This young man tweeted what he saw in Nigeria. He saw terrorists fighting with security officers and posted a picture and said oh, these guys are doing a good job and he disappeared. 21 days he wasn't found until there was pressure on the security of genesis because everyone denied they had him. They were passing him. We asked them and they said no. They moved him to a security. And when you move to the next security to ask for him, they said no because they passed him because he posted a tweet. Unfortunately, governments want to be in charge and they want to control things. It's natural for governments and one of the problems we have right now is governments begin to realize the Internet is a space for expression. Just yesterday, we saw what happened at open ceremony where people were trying to freely express themselves and security officers told them to shut up and took their things away government wants to be in charge. They go beyond the call of duty. They have a step on the right systems and that is why the very individual is on this declaration speak to many things. One of them is data privacy.
As I speak to you right now in Nigeria, there are several people in government that hold your information. Next leave during the sensors, the population committee wants to make it (inaudible). Your Telecom registration, the drivers license and, of course, your bank. My bank account has not been suspended. Of course they don't mind getting money into my account, but I can't get money out because I refuse to give my data. When you don't assure me of protection, then I know someone one day would likely plant because if you don't like me as government and you think I'm's threat to you, I will be accused of terrorist and my fingerprints will be on 68 because someone planted that. When we have this conversation about Internet rights, we're not discussing fancy words like data privacy, Internet and we're discussing matters of existence or (inaudible).
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you for scaring us a little bit. I'm hoping that east Africa is better. So I will ask Lillian to let us know what's happening in her region of Africa. Lillian, you have the floor.
>> LILLIAN: Thank you. These things always scare me because I know someone is listening out there.
[Laughter]
Sorry. Yes. Thank you so much. Just to add on what Binga and Nnenna have said, for me I would like to share that indeed, in Africa there are initiatives that are trying to promote Internet and one of those is the open net Africa initiative which is an initiative that was (inaudible) in 2012. We are trying to find ways in which we can advocate or promote Internet freedoms in the region through such advocacy and providing trainings and engagement with stakeholders for some of the faces here who know about the Internet freedom project in east Africa. Okay. Yes. The open initiative does research and advocacy around Internet freedom and some of these is the data protection. Just like Binga said, in many African countries, I stand to be corrected. We do not have protection laws and we have so many laws or so many policy frameworks that make it a point to take our data. The bank has all of my details, but man, I need to access my account. I don't know how you survive without money.
The other side, I think what makes this Africa declaration this framework that we are all here to hear about is this text processes, I mean, what we are trying to do is we're trying to do research just in a few selected countries in Africa and I think this can be one of the mechanisms that we can use to further our research. What we've learned is they're scattered initiatives. When I say scattered, I know part of the initiative is doing something when we want APC and maybe kick the Internet, but this is just a handful of civil society organizations that are trying to promote this. As Binga said, governments, maybe they care, but their own thing is cybersecurity, which is broad and vague in how they, you know, they ‑‑ in how they said it with national terrorism. We need processes. We need to empower citizens to be able is to advocate. So we're not just going to say we are launching the Africa declaration, but how do we get to the ordinary citizen to understand what it is we're saying here. And I think for those that are coming from Africa, this is one of the tests that we can take simple small steps and empower people on the Internet. The Internet as a tool for empowerment and a tool to go to Facebook or just tweet about anything that excites you, but they need to understand what are the underlying issues. Data protection alone, freedom of expression, access to content and also once they realize that, they'll start demanning for broadband. They'll start demanding for (inaudible). The most important thing is to be able to understand that the Internet is a tool for development. Then they'll start realizing why we need to promote Internet rights on the Internet.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you very much, Lillian. If you feel the up to it? Okay. Please. You have the floor.
>> EFRON: Hi. My name is Efron and I'm glad to be here. I am going to talk about the correlation between what our government sees nationally and what they commit themselves between national or the commission to themselves internationally and what they're doing in the domestic level. The kind of hypocrisy that happens and what you can do to hold them into account. For example, on the 21st of October, developmentary union has membership of 167 parliaments and almost all of the African governments are part of this. They are committed to digital development and democracy in the digital era, which was a great commitment. The hypocrisy of ‑‑ okay. Before we get to the hypocrisy, during the UPR, they fold governments to the human rights commitment. The Kenyan government pointed out surveillance and all that it is doing. The correspondence for the privacy and these are the countries Angola, Uganda, Zambia. How many of these countries lack data protection regimes? In Africa, this is the only one. They have very few countries and you look at the surveillance technology of the hacking teams. How many teams in Africa have been related to the hacking team and phishing. South Africa, Ethiopia, Morocco, Uganda, Egypt, so many countries and what they commit internationally and what they do nationally. We need to find a way. For them, they commit themselves to this initiatives. This is the thing that Africa and I will give a kiss for my own country. I'm sure there are some people here from Kenya. We signed up to SC, the international criminal code, the wrong statute. We sent ‑‑ we sent so many documents and declarations, but then there comes a domestic level and we don't do it. This is a weakness we can use as a set. For example, it isn't IPU in unions and declarations. We can use them to hold them into account using the things they do at an international level. I was looking at the UPI mechanisms. Last week, it is still ongoing and ending on the 10th of this month they're doing a review of a bunch of countries as a part of another review this past week. How many of us hold our governments to account at that level? You can participate as a civil schedule organization and you don't need so much input. You can do a submission with organizations or something. We need to work together to hold our governments into account. That's what I wanted to (inaudible) and this declaration is (inaudible) and we just ‑‑ there is another document that you see. We need to use it and translate it as Lillian talked about and Nnenna also talked about. You need translate it to the local level. People are able to understand what their rights are. That's the busiest. You are age to know is this law and this is the procedure, this is due process that's going to be followed for this load to be held into account on the basis of this law. So I will be happy to talk more about this. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you, Efron. Perhaps I should say that one of our judges will provide guidance on backing out policy and law making processes. The assumption here is that maybe they don't really know the right thing or they don't know how to go about it. There's not a lot of experts or legal or technical around these issues and this will provide guidance when they're making laws and privacies. But I think there is also a duty on that aspect of legal society to do advocacy that is necessary to bring the declaration to the attention of governments and to engage those law and policy making processes to insure there is principles that find their way into those documents. So in terms of moving forward, that's what we'll be talking about in law. How can we use the prince fills and standards that improves the legal frameworks and legal environments on which we break in different countries. Next is Amilla who is from southern Africa, which I expect is leading the region. Right?
>> AMILLA: Southern Africa is not just a leader, but women in Africa. I will talk about the challenges the key human rights issues and challenges that we need policy interventions in Africa. Some of them have been raised already and we have so many. I would like is to only highlight three challenges. The first one is that at national level, codes and legislations continue to grow with policy makers that impart human rights. We've seen that in so many African countries and probably in your continents as well, the new legal measures to keep freedom and laws and regulations that enacted and mostly we are told they are there to protect and they're vulnerable. The women, the children and those laws and regulations usually have provisions that are not clear or provisions that are vague.
We have vigorous language that could be abused and usually, these regulations, for example, one country mentioned and introduced new online regulations to protect environment to develop the ICT environment in the country. It is very broad restrictions in terms of freedom of expression. The second issue that I would also like to highlight is the environment for women and members of the LGBT community and are both represented online and harassed for the online activities. They take in any shade run by ACP is first huge amount of intimidation and threats and attacks and it's run by women. This is something we are also seeing. The third aspect that I also want to raise is access. Nnenna has talked about access already. I think access is still an issue. Access to information, as we all know, is very important if we realize our human rights. In Africa, I would say in many other parts of the developing world is access poor, access denied or access oppressed. In many countries in Africa, there's less than 5% of the people who are online. In some areas, less than 2% are online. So the ease ‑‑ a large population, which is not online, and we also access denied. We realized in many African countries, the government has shut down the Internet especially when they have service delivery protests or during elections. So you might have access, but it is denied to you and then we are also access oppressed. We are here in an air conditioned room eating very nice Brazilian food, but think of the human rights defenders out there who are oppressed because of the work they are doing on the Internet or they're using the Internet. Think of (inaudible) who is in jail right now because of the way that he was using the Internet. So many (inaudible), so many bloggers face jail terms and face imprisonment just because they use the Internet, just because they want to disseminate information. So either way access poor or access denied or access oppressed and as APC, we encourage the approach to access. The way people are involved in ICT policy development decision processes to insure that we express needs. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you very much, Amilla. I have to thank all this who have kept to time. It has worked so L. we're expecting that (inaudible) would join us any moment. But meanwhile, I would like to open up it for a composition. When he comes, I will give him an opportunity to share his own ideas. But for now, I would like to hear from the other side of the room questions, comments, points of view. Please indicate if you would like to intervene and use one of these two micro phones upfront because you are being watched, you are being filmed and ask your questions so you can be captured appropriately. I hope that is not intimidating for anyone. Now is not intention. Some people like to be on camera actually. I thought that might be an incentive.
So, I would very much like to hear from you because as we said, there is a lot of experts on the other side of the room and we thought you would be somebody who would have some importance and knowledge to share. Yes, please.
>> Audience member: I have a question.
>> MODERATOR: Question.
>> Audience member: Well, thank you to the panel. It's really wonderful to see that we launched the declaration a year ago. Since then, we've actually been using it, but I want to ask you yesterday in a panel that I was in Nigeria, I don't know if she's here, from Kenya talk about how hard it is to demand rights because so many people haven't experienced rights. When you have rights and you have them taken away from you, it is easier to react and have a demanned for those right ‑‑ demand for those rights to be brought back. Do you just take it issue by issue that something happened? Or maybe your responses to that. And then I think also I want to ask you about language because one of the issues we struggled, I have been part of the African Declaration group is language and what language we use when we ask for rights. Do we use the language of legal instruments, of international human rights law, which is what we want, but it's a language that is hard for us to use at two levels because our states disregard those standards 100% in most cases even in a country like south Africa. It is hard to use them with discourse and those in authority and also a language that is hard to use when you try to get people excited about this issue. And how do we find a balance between having correct language that is not going to weaken rights, but that is also a language that can be the basis for a strong productive dialogue.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. I will just suggest that anybody who wants to respond, I will take a bunch of interventions and have a conversation there. Debra? You have to come up, please.
>> DEBRA: Hi, Gabrielle. I want do make a quick remark. I think that it really depends on which instrument we're talking about. I don't think it is mutually exclusive. I think we have an African Declaration that reflects strong demands and international standards, but that should not prevent campaigns being run with a language that's less legalistic because the African Declaration and it reflects standards and calling for the adoption of certain rules, for instance and it can be used for that and be set in more legal language, in my view; however, in so far as a campaign is concerned, I think it can be ‑‑ you can use it to make it sound more exciting and glamorous. I just wanted to add that. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Okay. Thank you. First time I am hearing that legal language can be exciting and glamorous, but anything is possible.
[Laughter]
Yolanda? I tend to favor with them. So you're going to see that reflected in the people. I am upfront about it.
>> YOLANDA: Hello, everyone. So I have a question regarding the content of the declaration. There's a section which talks about Internet access and affordability, but within that section, there is also universal and equal seas. I want to know how do we balance affordable access versus universal access because universal access to me seems like something that's free that everyone can access without a cost, but then affordable has a cost in it. So I'm not quite sure what is meant by Internet access and affordability because what is affordable to me may not be affordable to you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Who has (inaudible).
>> Let me start by thanking all the members here for speaking well with all the details that they gave. In suggestion, I want to offer here that we need to (inaudible) that's a very good mobilization. Most people in Africa and I want to believe this is true for other (inaudible) to work of young people. If we try (inaudible) into this system, we need to achieve a lot within a short time. Secondly, we also need to take advantage of the (inaudible) communication programs in our schools. We have to normally seek investment for the content of this declaration to get them integrated into curricular information, science and such others. Teachers can be lobbied to integrate this into digital materials that we can get this popularized. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Okay. Thank you. You didn't introduce yourself, but (inaudible) in Nigeria and hopefully he's lobbied. Remote moderator, would you let us know if there are remote participants who have comments or questions? I saw a hand. I'm not sure what the remote moderator said.
>> Now you can hear me. We have one comment. We wants to put forward that the so the in Cameroon and he's putting forward a proposal with a handbook for each African user and their organization had been working with secondary schools to make them more approachable for students. He's asking a quick question. On the follow up for the African Declaration, what is the best way forward for strategizing going forward. He wants to know how we approach ICT governments to endorse the document in the future. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you, the speakers will get back on that. I saw a couple of hands. Okay. Sorry. The lady here and the gentleman behind.
>> Hi. My name is Silvia. I'm from Africa and my question is on creating public awareness or user awareness on privacy especially when it is the responsibility of government to give security to users online and you find the users are the ones who celebrate government. How do we create user awareness on privacy so they can join the fight on freedom for online?
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. I come from Ugambia. I'm a journalist and I search for Freedom House. I had a couple of questions and a comment. I will start with the comment. My comment is I read the declaration on freedom on the Internet on Africa and I like it. I like the content. It's very beautiful. My concern is in Africa, we have a lot of instruments. The African (inaudible) on human rights is collecting dust and a lot of other instruments are collecting dust in a lot of African government's cupboards. My question is ‑‑ first question is for instance, somebody mentioned ‑‑ and I can't remember exactly who. The rights of lives will be reflected online. This is for me probably not a perfect (inaudible) in another country. In Ugambia, we don't have the public space offline. If you think of the equating rights offline, it is probably not applicable. It is not probably in the U.S., but I think we need to think about that and think of how we can factor in places like other less frequented countries on the continent. I think I will leave it at that. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. I would like to give you some hope that it's better by the documents on the cupboard. Find that in the cupboard, there is some intention or some plan some day to look at them. That's the end of the matter. So let's take a positive attitude. We've now been joined by (inaudible). I explained why Ilia wasn't able to join us in the beginning. We have him here and he was willing to share himself. He's managed to pull it off. Thank you very much. I would like to give the floor to share his views with us.
>> Thank you. I actually was able to number two places at one time because I followed what was happening on Twitter. So for those of you tweeting, thank you. So I think that ‑‑ so I obviously haven't been able to follow as closely. I don't want to repeat anything that's already been said, but I did want to say a couple of things. One is efforts like the African Declaration are critical and they're critical because I think this is a general trend in human rights law that real enforcement and informative development or translation of the norms has to happen at regional, national and local levels. If you don't have the translation of the international down to the local, then we really do lose the ability to educate ourselves and to enforce the norms. And I also think that it goes both directions. The norms that are framed and are developed at the grass roots is an important transmission belt. It is not just the international to the national. So these efforts are really important. The second thing is in relation to the last question about collecting dust, anybody who writes anything has that fear. I don't know who digital dust is, but you have a hard copy here. I actually think that these principles will be used and actually this comes at a in a moment when regional courts and sub‑regional courts in Africa are starting to develop prudence and practice. So it is easy to look at other systems like Inter American and European and say they're so developed and they have decades of jurist prudence, but I think it is beginning in the African system in the east African court of justice. There may be opportunities. So I guess one thing I would encourage people to do is to use the principles in the declaration when ‑‑ well, first to litigate. I think even just impact litigation can be very important, but to take the principles here and actually use them in your regional litigation efforts. So for those of you who are actually active in pursuing rights whether digitally or otherwise in Africa, I think that's one possibility. I think there are actors working on those kinds of issues at the level of litigation. I would really encourage people not to allow this document to gather dust but to actually start to use it and identify which are the principles apply in particular cases you are pursuing and even if you are pursuing cases or maybe it's Geneva focus looking at resolutions to highlight what's happening in one place is happening in other places as well. And so I really ‑‑ I congratulate you on pulling all of this together, but I think it should have value going forward and people should have put it in good use. Thanks very much for comments.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: I think they're very encouraging not just because of the wisdom but also because of the person saying it. Very much appreciated.
Now, I think we should take the opportunity of David being here to also raise a number of these questions related to freedom of expression and opinion. He's the U.N. expert on these issues and can provide a lot of guidance for those of us who need expertise. So any questions or issues we want to raise? And I particularly would love to hear from some non‑Africans. So I don't know what the non‑Africans think and I would love to hear from them. Yes? Are non‑Africans shy?
[Laughter]
>> (speaking).
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: I don't know who digital shyness looks like.
[Laughter]
Okay. What happened on Andrew? He stepped out. Okay. So I think I will now ask our speakers to respond to some of the issues that have been raised and then also if they have specific questions they think that some of the participants would be able to share experiences from their countries or regions or share their individual expertise that can also put those questions to participants. So, Nnenna, I will start with you on the issue of access and affordability which Yolanda was suggesting.
>> NNENNA NWAKANMA: All of the people, all of the Internet, all of the time. This means that everybody should be free and able to access the Internet. That is what universality means. People being free and able to access the Internet. Affordability is about the pricing and the cost of it. I would like to draw our attention, Mr. Chair, that the Italian Bill of rights was sponsored by the Italian timber of deputies which is the equivalent of your national assembly in Nigeria. It is the law makers themselves that saw the need to grant these rights to the citizens and I would like to read the article of the Italian Bill of Rights. The article too is on the right to Internet access. It says access to the Internet is a fundamental right of all persons and the condition for the individual and social development. This has been rectified in Italy. Every Italian citizen has a right to Internet access. Under no condition should you deny access to the Internet to an Italian citizen. Countries like Estonia and Finland has even gone ahead and said not just any how Internet access, but actually broadband Internet access. I want to add that the broadband commission has said that Internet access, affordable Internet access has been defined as not more than 5% of your average monthly income in a country. So what is the average monthly salary in a country? What is 5% of that average monthly income if your broadband Internet costs more than that, then it's expensive. I have a pain in my heart because I would rather not speak about Gambia. It's a country we had bought tickets to go to Gambia. Not everything can be said online. Not everything can be said here in Brazil. I wish I could go to Gambia, but let me say the one that's okay here in Brazil. It is to say that the Internet is not necessarily a new reality in terms of rights. So you find that they have tweeted that our online activities reflect our offline realities. So, if you see that voice for IP cannot happen in Gambia, it would be because offline too and even voice or over expression may not be happening. Okay? You understand what I mean? I will stop here.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Okay. On that issue as well, on the issue of access and affordability, they also have some comments.
>> EFRON: I love the Internet. I love the time. I've seen instances where state violations for human rights and for example, congo last week where ‑‑ bass people are organizing say demonstrations, pressful demonstrations and legal processes of having those demonstrations, but then the government disrupted those demonstrations and they shut down the Internet. Same thing happened to Barundhi. We saw it in the beginning of the year. I would love to go there because you can see I am wearing east African community shirt. It's a community for the five countries where change came up with a union. It's very disheartening. I feel it because I have friends there and activists, journalists are being physically tortured to give passwords to their devices. Photos could be deleted when they were leaving to go to Uganda. All of the Internet all the time. This kind of action by the government or by the shut down of telecommunications equipment, we need to find a strategy around this and also on that matter, I would like to relate that last year in June, the African governments in gambia and new Guinea and the African convention was (inaudible). This process has a lack of transparency and some laws have been put into ‑‑ other laws, for example, laws on anti‑terrorist and there's been disclosures sneaked into some jurisdictions that impacts things. I don't know how many Zimbabweans are in the room. For spasm, Zim ‑‑ I would like it have friends that are not (inaudible), but some friends have those laws and they're accessible to people. I want to analyze and see the implications for digital rights. There's need to highlight more ‑‑ to show more transparency on this. They have multi‑stakeholder transpired. I know my sometime almost up. In most African countries, governments put cybersecurity as more a military tool and military intervention and they insure they're semi‑secure. They need to insure more walking with a stick of how this is in place. Grace can agree with me and Moses also walked on it. The convention initially and most of us can note it had to go out of modifications. That's how democracies work. It is tiresome. It is push and pull and you need to insure the citizens are consulted through the whole process. That is something you guys needed to highlight on this. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. Macan, you want to say something.
>> MACAN: Yes. Thank you. I want to put emphasis on question asked by one of the participants on affordability and access because I think that the student to see affordability as free, but what we need to know is that access is guaranteed to everybody that is the most important issue and then affordability also will make sure that your budget is not over trend like Nnenna has said. She has put 5% and we had one participant who is paying 18 a month and forming with bandwidth. So that meant that is 90 or 100% or 50% of the average African. So I think access and afford act should target into not (inaudible) as filtering and introducing bandwidth because this happens. (inaudible) for whatever reasons in Africa. Of course, prices should take into account the purchasing power of ordinary citizen. You have less than a dollar per day. On the issue of making sure the declaration is used and someone from Cameroon indicated that a book should be handed out to everyone. I believe when you have the African Nigerian meeting, there was a recommendation on this declaration. For example, it was indicated in companies and entities and they strongly urge and form (inaudible) their declaration. And the African (inaudible) and human rights which is in Gambia should establish mechanisms to monitor and popularize through all sections of African population. And we had the African union representative during the concluding panel where he indicated a declaration that would be introduced to irrelevant (inaudible) in the framework of Internet governance debate. This was made on the African continent more crazy (inaudible) environment. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you very much. We have four speakers left. Before I ask them to give their final, I want to find out from the remote moderator for comments and questions. Yes? Please, can you share that with us?
>> Remote moderator: We have one more comment. He's follows up on David's point regarding the court system. And he wants to say that the use of existing human rights mechanism is crucial for the declaration and they're filling a very important gap there Gaza, 46 an states need to develop strong protection and that is the power of applying the platform from which both the conversation between stakeholders and the advocacy ask truly begin. The declaration is coming out at an eventual point in time. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. We have just about 8 minutes left. So I will have to give my remaining because two minutes left each. We really have to wind this down. So you go first.
>> Just to speak to this being on the shelf, I think it's in the niche of governments to leave things. The reason we call them government is because they pretend to work. This is the first that really wants to work. So I think it's in our responsibility to use this. You can Lee it on the shelf. That's fine. But people who walk in country, I think you have to turn had into a leave‑in document. We're working with the same national assembly who wants to limit social media to pass a bill on digital rights and freedom. Wish us luck, but that's ‑‑ that's some action that's on the ground. Regardless of where the document is, don't forget the one on the left, the spirit of the document is for your actions.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Lillian?
>> Lillian: Thank you. I think we need to be tactful in how to move forward with this document especially with the principles. We don't want it to get dust. From the time to now, we try to achieve some baby steps. I think the way we want has taken that forward giving some more grants in how to promote the declaration. If we're looking at say access, there are those organizations, but just walk around from meeting access to broadband or Internet, those that are just in the area of freedom of expression, so let's just get it principle by principle. If we take them into one document and try to accessing them all at once, you may not achieve the full results.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Okay. Don't swallow what you can't chew.
>> I think we need to dispel that this is for governments. It is for all of us Africans and non‑Africans. So we need to engage with a declaration. Please visit the website. Look at the principles. I also think that this document is just not a declaration, but it needs to inform policy within our countries and also we can use it as an example of how the stake holder works. The processees works and we give this whole initiative as different stakeholders and you can use it at the national level to actually show how the processes work in action. And also one completion I put across is when I was talking about access is that I think we also need to look at the barriers for easy is beyond that and as all of us in the center to be able to defeat all the challenges that we face. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. So you'll have the final what.
>> Actually, the last two sets of points are really important. You don't want to dilute any of the direct principles and some of them will be really valuable and it's a really important comment. The other comment about informing government policy is also really important to find ways to inject into legislative discussion or others the principles here. The last thing I wanted to say was somethings that I should have said before which is so the government of Nigeria has invited me on an official visit which hopefully I'll be able to do in the spring. And that might be also coming from the question, I guess it was coming online about finding ways for U.N. mechanisms to use it. Hopefully that visit will get scheduled. Hopefully facility be this spring and it might be a nice opportunity for you to give a platform to it that will be both domestic, regional and to an extent international because not only would I visit, but then I report on the visit afterwards to the human rights counsel and that might be an opportunity to highlight the principles themselves. Thank you.
>> Mr. Chair?
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Thank you. That's some very good news.
>> Mr. Chair, (inaudible) strict in Nigeria.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: (inaudible) in Nigeria. Yes. I'm sure we can work out those details later on, but it is something that we should certainly engage fully and make sure it happens and gets the visibility that I think it requires. We have a couple of minutes. He wants to make a final recommendation.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chair. The panel recommendation in African IGF, we discussed this declaration. There was a recommendation on adopting African Internet rights date. And I believe we should (inaudible) this in the coming part of the process and push a new African level so this can be taken into account. So I think from now on, you will have (inaudible) recommendations through the process. Thank you.
>> GABRIELLE GUILLEMIN: Okay. Thank you for that. Just to leave you with some good news, we have access to information community. The international conference is today, the resolution September 28th and February to access universal access date, access to information day. Since it was recommended in Bulgaria in 2002, I think it's become an official day. I think Inez deliberates it in a whole range of information flows that should be captured on that. So I want to thank the participants first for coming to this session for the engagement, for the attention and for making it happen. When you have a forum like this, you always wonder whether you will have anybody to talk to because it can be disastrous if we didn't have participants to talk to. So (inaudible) and walk quietly out of the room. So thank you very much for making it meaningful for us for raising some of the important issues that have also come up. And then I want to thank the speakers for their willingness to share their time, hair your energy, share your experiences and expertise on these issues. It is very much appreciated. We don't want this to gather dust analog or digital. So we are going to be thinking of creative ways to engage receipts and then continue this process. So thank you very much on that and I hope we will turn to talk about this going forward. For those of you that will be available in the spring, please come to Nigeria and join me. (inaudible) intellectual exercise and I will be happy to do that. So thank you very much and I hope you find it.
[APPLAUSE]