[huridocs-tech] OSCE meeting on racism and the Internet

VIENNA, 14 June 2004 - The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgarian Foreign
Minister Solomon Passy, and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier will
together open an OSCE meeting on 16 June examining the relationship
between racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet and
hate crimes.

More than 300 participants have registered to attend the two-day event,
which will be hosted in Paris by the French Government. They will include
representatives of governments and international organizations, but also
of civil society and the Internet industry. Keynote speakers will include
Robert Badinter, former French Minister of Justice and Dan Bryant,
Assistant Attorney General from the US Department of Justice.

The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Solomon Passy,
urged the meeting's participants to "rise to this new challenge and take
the fight against all forms of racism into cyberspace".

"Few developments of the past 10 years have transformed the modern world
as much as the Internet. Yet the wonderful freedom created by the Internet
has also made it possible for the enemies of civilized values to spread
poisonous messages of hate to a vast global audience," Minister Passy
said.

"It is important to find the correct balance between the right to free
expression and society's need to protect its citizens from hate
propaganda.  The best approach may be self-regulation or co-regulation,
with governments and Internet firms working together", he added.

The event is the second in a series of three OSCE meetings this year
focusing on tolerance and anti-discrimination. It follows a high-profile
conference on anti-Semitism, held in Berlin at the end of April.

The Paris meeting will use several working sessions to focus on the law
affecting the propaganda on the Internet and hate crimes, and analyze the
nature and extent of the problem. They will also try to identify possible
public and private partnerships in the fight against the phenomenon,
including the development of best practices and the promotion of tolerance
through the Internet.

The meeting will begin on Wednesday, 16 June at 9.00 a.m. in the Centre de
Conferences Internationales, 23 rue La Perouse, Paris. It will be entirely
open to the media.

Accreditation for media representatives wishing to attend the meeting ends
on 14 June. Accreditation forms and other technical information are
available on a special website (see links below).

A press conference will be held to mark the end of the meeting, with the
participation of the French Secretary of State, Renaud Muselier. The event
will take place at 18.00 on Wednesday, 16 June, in the Centre de
Conferences Internationales, press conference room.


Latest news from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) - http://www.osce.org


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