Topics:
- a. Right of freedom of expression, violence and censorship of the media.
- b. Privatization of the internet, referring to copyrights.
Dear delegates, ambassadors and ministers present:
In this model you aren´t just representing a country in a model of a debate of the united nations, but you will do more things you ever imagine, you will learn how they think and live people in other countries around the world, including the possibility of interaction and meet partners that in their lives you haven´t been spoken or known each other although they are in the same school, you will learn how to defend your ideals and you will learn to understand others.
So I hope that all delegates at least on this committee understand that this is more than just a model for a grade in any month, it is more than that. One day when you are old, you can tell your children, grandchildren, nephews, you can tell your experiences in this model that not all schools do, feel proud of that simple fact.
Luck delegates,
Let's begin the PAZ MUN 2012!
Servio Tulio Reyes Castillo
General Assembly President
General Assembly´s
President
Hi guys! My name is Servio Tulio Reyes Castillo. I am a dedicated
person, I am someone who does not need to
be told things to do them many
times, I do not give up easily at
any time, I like to have knowledge and someone who is very direct so if you want
a point of view or an opinion this will be very specific and without lies.
Age: 14 years old
Hobbies: I do whatever I can for not being bored.
Things I dislike: That people are incompetent, when they do not
pay attention and people that easily give up.
General Assembly’s chair
· Name: Mayte Gomez Garcia
· Birthday: 9th of December
· Things I like: I like to be with my friends and to know new people, I like to sing even though I sing horrible, I like to dance, I like to drink coffee, to eat candies and to go to the cinema.
· Things I hate: I really hate the onions and garlic, I cannot stand insects, I detest the smell of cigarette, and principally I hate people that lie.
General Assembly’s moderator
Hey! I guess most of you guys know me, for the ones that don’t my name is Iván Chávez and I’m going to be your moderator for this LaPazMUN 2012. Here’s a little bit more about me and well, I hope we all have a great time together.
- Name: Iván Alejandro Chávez Castrejón
- Age: 15 Years, my birthday is on January the 25th.
- Hobbies: First of all my friends; I love spending time with my friends (your chair and your secretary general for example, and they’re great!). I also like sports; my personal favorites are football & basketball. Just for the record Dallas Cowboys are what I live for.
- What I don’t like: Spinach, bananas, etc. I can also say I don’t like boring committees. We have EVERTHING to be the best committee in the model guys: topics, staff & delegate so let’s just do it.
Now you know me I guess we’re ready to rock! Ohhh and take some time to meet your other staff members, I’m sure you’ll like them.
Topic A. Right of freedom of expression, violence and censorship of the media
Freedom of expression is one of the most fundamental rights that individuals enjoy. It is fundamental to the existence of democracy and the respect of human dignity. It is also one of the most dangerous rights, because freedom of expression means the freedom to express one's discontent with the status quo and the desire to change it. As such, it is one of the most threatened rights, with governments - and even human rights groups - all over the world constantly trying to curtail it.
The United States, probably like no other nation, has recognized the importance of freedom of expression to safeguard democracy and grow as a nation. However, this does not mean there are no efforts to try to curtail it. The internet has often been the target of this efforts, as it provides practically everyone with the ability to communicate their ideas to wide audiences and escapes the ability of the state to control it.
T his page is just being born, but in the future we hope to provide you with thorough information about what freedom of speech means, why it is important to protect it and what are the attempts to curtail it. Meanwhile we hope you find the information we do offer useful.
Countries defending the right of freedom and expression
Mainly USA, French and Germany are the ones who mainly protects this article.
Countries violating the right of freedom and expression
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville,
Côte d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon,
Laos, Mauritania, Rwanda, Togo, Tunisia, Vietnam, Angelia, Arabia Saudi, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia y Tunes
Sources of information and research
Topic B. Privatization of the internet and censorship of the media
Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.
One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. Conversely, attempts by one government to prevent its citizens from seeing certain material can have the effect of restricting foreigners, because the government may take action against Internet sites anywhere in the world, if they host objectionable material.
Barring total control on Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea, total censorship of information on the Internet is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.
These are the countries that are against the internet
In 2006 the organization Reporters without Borders published a list of the 13 "enemies of the Internet" these countries only show certain information filtered to their population limiting their knowledge of information from the world
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These aren´t the only countries that filter the information before it arrives to their population many others countries also do it but in less scale than the countries previously mention.
Level of privatization of the internet
There are different levels of censorship: Pervasive, Substantial, and Nominal. Below are the countries that fall in the different categories.
Pervasive
Cuba
Iran
Maldives
Myanmar
North Korea
People's Republic of China
Syria
Tunisia
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Substantial
South Korea
Saudi Arabia
United Arab Emirates
Yemen
Qatar
Nominal
Australia
Brazil
Canada
Denmark
European Union
Fiji
Finland
France
India
Israel
Italy
Morocco
Norway
Pakistan
Russia
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Thailand
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States of America
Sources of information and research
| GA |
Delegate
|
Country
|
1
|
Gutiérrez Chávez Mario
|
USA
|
2
|
Leomar Antonio González Olmos
|
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
|
3
|
Loza Limón Fernando
|
UK
|
4
|
Larios Xiadani
|
NETHERLANDS
|
5
|
Maza Zepeda Rodrigo
|
THAILAND
|
6
|
Campos Ramirez Pablo
|
AUSTRALIA
|
7
|
Onofre Santana Saul Alejandro
|
SOMALIA
|
8
|
Hernandez Ortiz Carlos
|
CHINA
|
9
|
Torrero Ochoa Fernando Mario
|
GERMANY
|
10
|
Robles René
|
FRANCE
|
11
|
Jallath Sofía
|
AFGHANISTAN
|
12
|
Guevara Guillermo
|
IRAN
|
13
|
Rueda Pla Gibran
|
CUBA
|
14
|
Tamayo Romero Guillermo
|
LIBYA
|
15
16
|
Reyes Pardo Emiliano
Torres Castillo Aldo
|
NORTH KOREA
ARAB EMIRATES
|
|
|
|
Useful Videos:
Secretary Hillary Clinton's Internet Freedom Speech At GW:
The next document talks about useful information concerning both topics. It is a position paper created by one of our Students to go to an outside MUN.
Check it out:
DELEGATION: United
States of America
COMMITEE: UNICEF - United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization.
TOPIC A: Crimes Against Journalism
Delegate: Sofia Jallath Carreon
Paragraphs 1 and 4 are missing from our formal position paper.
2) Background
The United States is a leader in the
worldwide fight against corruption. When Congress enacted the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act in 1977, many governments and international financial
institutions were reluctant to discuss, much less attack, the problems of
corruption found inside and outside their jurisdictions.
However when we talk about crimes
against journalism all over the world, the situation changes. Talking first
about journalism itself. “The freedom of the press” had always been for the United
States of America a prior on its interests to promote its development, from
News Papers, to Magazines, to Books, to Radio, to Television or to Internet.
Today the definition includes the
freedom of communication and expression through vehicles including various
electronic media and published materials. However governments have to protect
their people from the misused of this information on behalf of protecting the
national interest.
A list of how a violation on Journalism can
be abroad stands on:
Misleading headlines
Deceptive or miss represented statistics
Statistics research or opinion from a
dubious source
Hyperbole
Cherry-picking (quotes,
facts, science, etc.)
Misplaced assumptions (e.g. news
articles that start from a position of assuming marriage is the best option,
homosexuality is not ‘normal’, Saddam Hussein is a serious and immediate threat
to the UK, USA, Mexico, Canada, Spain and other countries.)
Pointlessness
Lack of context
Use of
“scare” quotes.
Stolen Information
Plagiarism
Among Others.
Having to mention as well the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone
has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom
to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through
any media regardless of frontiers".
At the same time, the Internet continues
to be restrained in a myriad of ways. In China, the government censors content
and redirects search requests to error pages. In Burma, independent news sites
have been taken down with distributed denial of service attacks. In Cuba, the
government is trying to create a national intranet, while not allowing their
citizens to access the global Internet. In Vietnam, bloggers who criticize the
government are arrested and abused. In Iran, the authorities block opposition
and media websites, target social media, and steal identifying information
about their own people in order to hunt them down.
3) United States’ Policy and Involvement
For the United States the position
stands as on the same line of openness and freedom. However with freedom comes
responsibility of calling for ground rules to protect against wrongdoing and
harm.
History shows us better on the right to
protect our people. The Civil Rights Movement emerged in
the mid-1950s with a series of boycotts against racially segregated facilities
in the South, sparked by the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of
Education, which outlawed segregation in the public schools. The protests
reached a peak in the early 1960s, resulting in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. While the passage of
the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were watershed moments in postwar US
history.
Overall the United States of America had always deal
with this kind of situations because as one of the freest Countries of the
World, people express themselves in any way possible. However situations like
WikiLeaks are a perfect example of crime journalism, beginning with mentioning
that they were put in front of a court because the information they published
was stolen. And for that it became a crime.
5) Proposals
The United States Government has not all
the answers. We’re not sure we have all the questions. But we are committed to
asking the questions, to helping lead a conversation, and to defending not just
universal principles but the interests of our people and our partners.
The first challenge is achieving both
liberty and security. Therefore United States
Of America promotes the LAW SOPA (Stop
Online Piracy Act) for all the countries to have it as one of their own laws.
It is a proposed bill that aims to crack down on
copyright infringement by restricting access to sites that host or facilitate
the trading of pirated content.
As part of the same path and to protect journalists as
well, The United States of America proposes the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the
Press Act. Which amends the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to include provisions
to spotlight governments that seek to silence any media whatsoever in
opposition by calling upon of the examination of the status of freedom of the
press worldwide.
Recognizing as well that this is not only a matter for
UNESCO to solve but as well to be considered by United Nations of Human Rights.
Bibliography
