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Communication Rights in the Information Society: The Platform on Communication Rights launched a Campaign in London on November 2nd 2001 to ensure that human rights issues, and especially those pertaining to media and communications, are taken fully into account at the UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The WSIS, led by the ITU but sponsored by the UN as a whole, will take place in two phases, Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005. Its broad mandate is "to develop a common vision and understanding of the information society and to draw up a strategic plan of action for concerted development towards realising this vision" (see www.itu.int/wsis). The Platform was initially formed five years ago in London to develop a common strategy among NGOs in relation to media and communications and the Right to Communicate (see www.comunica.org/v21 for background). Among its members are ALAI, AMARC, APC, MacBride Round Table, Panos, PCC, RITS, WACC and many others active in communication issues. The Platform believes that civil society in general must go beyond viewing media merely as a tool to publicise or support their actions. Rather, they comprise dynamics factors and instruments of social, economic and cultural development, and must themselves be a terrain for struggle between those who support human rights based development and those with narrower sectional priorities. The Platform decided to launch the campaign, called Communication Rights in the Information Society (C.R.I.S.) in order to ensure that the WSIS process is broadened beyond ICT and Internet issues to other media, and deepened beyond technical and 'neutral' economic frameworks to introduce human rights at its core. Full NGO participation in WSIS planning as well as execution is also vital. Its first action is to organise (with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung) a Seminar in Geneva on the 19th - 20th of November 2001 with the title: "Communication as a human right in the information society: Issues for the WSIS". This is opportunity for media NGOs and public service media to develop positions and put them to the WSIS. It will be followed by a series of actions and coordination activities, many coinciding with major civil society events. The Campaign is developing a set of Position Papers exploring key issues to be introduced into the WSIS agenda and process, compiling resources for Web exchange, and building partnerships with NGOs and other entities sharing similar concerns. Communication Rights in the Information Society:
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