Chilling effect (was: A fair representation of the Mauritian public)

From: S Moonesamy <sm+mu_at_elandsys.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 13:59:13 -0700

Hi Shelly,
At 11:23 15-06-2015, Shelly Hermia Bhujun wrote:
>I propose that we discuss about this topic during the weekly Skype
>discussion on Thursday.

It is a good suggestion.

>I would like to thank you for raising this matter as I don't believe
>that we should encourage people to spam Government and
>Non-Government Representatives. I would highly recommend people to
>ensure that their emails are polite and contain carefully thought
>out arguments if they wish to write to anyone who is not a
>subscriber of this mailing list.

I'll quote an extract of a report written by Geoffrey Robertson QC:

    "... the basic rule is that on the one hand the law should not permit the
     suppression of information of genuine public interest and on the other
     it should not allow improper intrusion into the intimacies of private
     life for no purpose other than sniggering sensationalism."

Do we encourage or enable improper intrusion in the private life of
another person? Based on my reading of the messages sent to the
mailing list I would say that we do not encourage or enable that.

Do we encourage people to send messages for no other purpose other
than sniggering sensationalism? In my opinion the answer is no.

Please see
http://www.elandsys.com/~sm/govmu-org-email-disclaimer.html As far
as I am aware any information which I sent to the mailing list is
already publicly available or else it is information which has been
provided to me as part of a Mauritius Internet Users activity.

Is this mailing list a fair representation of the Mauritius
public? No. It is the closest match for a group with people in
Mauritius from various backgrounds interested in the internet in
Mauritius. I do not say that the group comprises many persons as
that does not reflect the truth.

The actual issue (unrelated to what Dan wrote) is that a few persons
are exchanging information about the internet problems affecting
them. It is against the tradition in Mauritius to do that. The
organisations which are supposed to solve the problems will deny that
the problems exist or they may threaten to take legal action against
the person who talks about the problems instead of trying to solve
the problems. The latter is known as the "chilling effect".

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
Received on Mon Jun 15 2015 - 20:59:43 PST

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