Hi Ish,
At 12:39 24-04-2017, Ish Sookun wrote:
>I saw tweets [1] about the Cameroon internet shutdown. The media [2]
>picked up the story. You participated in the "Anti-Shutdown" proposal on
>the Resource Policy Discussion list of Afrinic. Do you have a synthesis
>of the situation?
A few months ago, the Kenyan regulator hinted that there may be an
internet shutdown during the general elections if things get out of
hand. There is an unconfirmed report of an ISP in Kenya being
requested to shut down the internet; the request was revoked after a
few hours. The proposal was submitted after those events.
There is a long discussion about the proposal on the Resource Policy
Discussion mailing list. There were suggestions to discuss the
matter within a government-only "working group" as the proposal, if
it is adopted, may create a direct conflict with one or more
governments in the region. There are other issues, i.e. is a
Regional Internet Registry allowed to have a policy to take specific
action against a government; what impact would such a policy have on
the other Regional Internet Registries; will there be repercussions
at the global level?
The internet shutdown in anglophone regions in Cameroon was mentioned
during the discussions about the proposal. A few months ago, a
journalist raised that issue in an unrelated discussion and pointed
out that the local chapter of the Internet Society in that country
approved of the shutdown. Several organizations involved in
"internet governance" sent a letter of protest to the (global)
Internet Society about the stance taken by its local chapter in Cameroon.
A few days ago, the Head of State [1] instructed the Minister of Post
and Telecommunications to have internet access re-established in the
affected regions. There was a question about whether the proposal
had any impact of the situation in Cameroon. I would say that it had
an impact as there was a change after foreign news sites published
news stories about the proposal and the situation in Cameroon.
There was also a discussion about Mauritius shutting off access to
Facebook and whether the ICTA is independent. It was mentioned that
the Board of ICTA are "government nominees from chair to each and
every member", and that "they are independent per say but the reality
is always different". This led to a discussion on another mailing
list about "fighting internet shutdown" [2]. I didn't mention the
following news article as I was not sure whether you were still
interested in the matter:
https://www.lexpress.mu/article/trilock-dwarka-pourquoi-licta-bloqu%C3%A9-%C2%ABfacebook%C2%BB
I suggest comparing it with the reply which you received.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1.
http://crtv.cm/fr/nouvelles/journal-national-1/anglophone-crisis-internet-restored-19143.htm
2.
https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/2017-April/001252.html
Received on Mon Apr 24 2017 - 21:37:50 PST