WC Archive

Ethan Zuckerman is in Tunis for the World Summit on the Information Society conference, where's both an observer and a participant. He's blogging his observations over at his home site, ...My Heart's in Accra. Ethan, along with Global Voices partner Rebecca MacKinnon, are running a workshop entitled "Expression Under Repression" -- and they got a taste of it at the summit.

Yesterday, we were warned that our session could be cancelled by the Tunisian authorities. We also discovered that the session wasn’t listed in the official program guide. Today, we came to the room where the session was to be held and there was a sign on the door stating that the workshop was cancelled. Friends who passed by the UNDP booth on the WSIS floor earlier today heard gossip that the security forces would appear at our session and anyone who attended would be arrested. [...] This low-grade harrasment did nothing to dampen our turnout for the session. The room is literally standing room only and people are listening in through the doorway.