Dear all,
A week ago, the WMF issued a press release, "Seven Wikimedia chapters rejected as permanent observers to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)":
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2022/07/15/seven-wikimedia-chapters-rej...
This stated, in part, "China was the only country to oppose the Wikimedia chapters’ request for observer status, again, claiming that chapters were complicit in spreading disinformation and are subsidiaries of the Wikimedia Foundation. These statements are unfounded and misrepresent Wikipedia’s model which prioritizes accuracy, neutrality, as well as the fact that the chapters are completely autonomous."
About a week ago, I had seen and retweeted a Twitter thread[1] by James Love[2], the Director of Knowledge Ecology International, listing a whole litany of countries that had supported China's position.
I checked the webcast of the July 15 WIPO proceedings today,[3] and there were over a dozen countries – Russia, Belarus, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Iran, Syria, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, North Korea – that took the floor to support and endorse China's position – more, in fact, than took the floor to support the chapters' approval.
Would it be possible to amend the press release accordingly?
Best, Andreas
[1] https://twitter.com/jamie_love/status/1550520525180518400 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Love_(NGO_director) [3] Available here: https://webcast.wipo.int/ (afternoon session of July 15, part 6. Admission of Observers)