Kyle Lutze wrote:
it would be
very disconcerting to have to be watching what we say in egypt to
make sure we don't end up in jail.
so in short, I believe the question is what guarantees will the
attendees and speakers have that they will not be arrested even if
they say something that the government doesn't agree with?
Common sense is your best guarantee. The best advice for anyone who
travels to any other country is, "Don't act stupid." If you stand in
the middle of Tien An Min Square in Beijing and start making public
speeches condemning Chinese human rights policies, you're asking to be
arrested... especially if you do it in Chinese instead of English. If
there is a problem with human rights in another country it's up to the
people there to fix it. The circumstances where foreign meddling might
be justified are so exceptional, that those places can never reach the
point of even asking for a Wikimania.
If attendees start carrying on about the lack of Egyptian democracy, the
easiest countermeasure is not to report it (in Arabic) in the local
media. They know these foreigners are only there for a short while, and
the last thing they would want is an international incident. That would
not be good for Egypt's very important tourist industry.
Ec