In 2013, a number of Wikimania attendees had their Hong Kong visas stuck in the pipeline at the local Chinese embassies with no response to any enquiry. A month before Wikimania, a local sponsor of Wikimania 2013 (DotAsia) agreed to be guarantor and negotiated directly with the Immigration Department of Hong Kong to secure the visas. The visas were then sent by registered mail to attendees. Much of that work involved me personally going to the Immigration Department headquarters in Hong Kong every working day for several weeks to get the paperwork right. In the end, we saved about a dozen visa applications and only one person was unable to come to Hong Kong due to visa issues.

I'm not sure about the Canadian system, but it is likely that Wikimedia Canada and the Wikimania committee can request the visa-issuing authorities in Canada to review the applications. The first steps would be to check who the relevant authorities are, and to ask all applicants with rejected visa applications to send the Wikimania organisers the details of rejection.

Re GN - Visa processes are usually the reverse of what you suggested. Normally the host organisation issues their invitation, confirms travel and accommodation arrangements, then the applicant goes to the relevant embassy. It is not feasible to apply for a visa before one makes travel arrangements.

Deryck

On 22 June 2017 at 11:13, Gnangarra <gnangarra@gmail.com> wrote:
These issues are a symptom of the closed processes that have occurred firstly with Montreal and next year with middle eastern attendees to Cape Town .  Acknowledging that the change was because of the amount effort put in by unsuccessful bidders was said to be wasted its showing that some things need to be opened for community discussion before decisions are made.  

 That it may be better for the WMF to require applicants to first obtain a visa before being confirmed for the scholarships in the future.  Perth/Australia is another place that visas for attendees wouldnt have been a big issue.    

On 22 June 2017 at 17:43, cs <cs@edubkk.org> wrote:
That’s one of the  reasons why  I  proposed Bangkok, Thailand, for 2019 - apart  from its extremely tolerant  social cultures and very  low cost, while being  a very  modern hi-tech city easily  accessible by  direct  flights from most  parts of the world. Almost  everyone can enter the country  for  at  least  15  days without  even a visa. Thailand only makes it difficult for people wanting to stay longer (years) in the country  on the pretext  of being  tourists.

It’s a shame for the visa refusals, but  perhaps this will open up the possibility to some refused scholarship applications. 

Kudpung.
On 22Jun, 2017, at 16:23, Bodhisattwa Mandal <bodhisattwa.rgkmc@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

The main topic of discussion among the scholarship recipients from global south this month is the high visa rejection rate by Canadian embassies from these countries.

This year, we had 7 scholarship recipients from Bengali community, 4 from India and 3 from Bangladesh. Already 3 out of 4 scholarship recipients from Indian part of the communities got their visa rejected, others are waiting. Although I am hoping for the best for all the scholarship recipients, but may be news of more rejections are coming soon.

Wikimania should be organised in a visa friendly country, and not in those countries where global south citizens are not allowed to enter even for a 6-days conference. Otherwise, a global community is not truly presented.

Best wishes,
Bodhisattwa

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