As thousands of delegates and infotech experts gathered in Tunisia this weekend for a UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), human rights and media freedom groups were asking: Is this meeting in the wrong place?
In statements posted on Web sites across the Internet, a wide range of global non-governmental organisations (NGOs) argued that Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali ran a repressive regime and should not be hosting the event.
The Tunisian government, asserts IFEX, an international monitoring group linking major NGOs from rich and poor countries, "is jeopardising the chances of success of this summit by a deliberate policy of massive human rights violations."