hi,
Also another thing to consider that all Wikimedians in India are not
Chapter members. Can anything initiated by the chapter be used to
provide 'services' to non-members?
Also, no matter how much a person or organisation prepares itself,
threats to Wikimedians come in various ways. I've heard of everything
from threats to life to threats on Wikipedia/mailing lists. I think,
we need resources that can be used pan-India and the first line of
defense is at best each Wikipedian educating themselves on the
practical nuances and also openly sharing such experiences on the list
so that many can benefit from the same. The Foundation/Chapter can
only build minimal defenses on top of this, IMO. What these minimal
defenses are must be discussed by the Chapter and the Foundation
individually and together.
Pradeep
Handheld
PS: Back from a wiki vaccation
On 06/02/2012, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <parakara.ghoda(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with you completely. While I've never been
dragged to a Police
station, the Coimbatore Police made me delete ALL my photos on the camera,
and the Bangalore Police took away my memory card.
Do we need to send across a letter or something across to the Police?
On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 2:40 AM, <wheredevelsdare(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I thought Id bring up something thats been at the back of my mind for the
last few days. With offline activities increasing in the last couple of
months, it is a good sign for the project overall in India. However, we
sometimes tend to unintentionally ruffle a few feathers (or people wanting
to take advantage of the situation pretend that we have). This got me
thinking of what sort of backup we Wikipedians can expect if they get into
trouble whiles taking part in volunteer activities? I dont mean getting
caught doing something illegal, I mean any trouble whiles taking part in
or
organising routine activities. I dont mean to scare people, this is
something that is the result of recent happenings. In Mumbai, Wikipedians
have had to visit the Police Station twice in the last 3 months.
First time we had a battery of people including Chapter Secretary Naveen
Francis, WMF Deputy Director Erik Moeller (who literally got off a flight
and walked into the cop station), our Legal brain Gautam John, WMF Trustee
Bishakha Dutta and WMF Advisor Achal Prabhala among others go down to the
police station as a political party threatened to stage a protest at our
event in November 2011.
Last month, we had another visit to the police station during the
photowalk because a corporate house was paranoid when we took photographs
of their headquarters. Hisham, Gautam and Achal were all unavailable,
thankfully Bishakha was and she was able to get a legal opinion from some
lawyer friends that what we were doing was totally legal as it was not a
prohibited area. We cannot expect to fall back on such people all the
time,
after all they are here as volunteers as well (well, except for Erik and
Hisham).
Reiterating, that though we were on the right side of the law, we were
dragged to the police. I am worried what the case would be if a formal
complaint or a case is filed against a Wikipedian (though Im hoping this
will never happen) to trouble or scare him, what assurance does he have
from the organisation? As most Wikipedians are doing volunteer-work in
their spare time, I think its highly important that there is some sort of
assurance that they will not be left to fend for themselves if something
unforeseen leaves them personally in a spot of bother. Could someone from
India Programs or WM-IN please advice the community of what sort of
back-up
and legal support/insurance the community can expect in the event of such
eventualities?
Kind Regards,
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--
Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on February 12th.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
Aliens invaded Tamil Nadu, left their Spacship and now it is a Toll Plaza.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IVRCL-Vijayamangalam-Toll-Plaza.JPG