Am posting my response to James Alexander's email here FYI, and his original email all below
My name is David Robert Lewis, an independent researcher at Medialternatives.com.
As an anti-apartheid activist and journalist at several banned publications taken off the shelves by the apartheid state, I object to your blatantly dishonest and false accusations.
I therefore refute the allegations that I have in any way disrupted the Tunis Conference, since I have not traveled out of my country for several years.
Secondly I refute any allegation that I attended the so-called "Decolonising the Internet" Pre-Conference in Cape Town, since I was not admitted to the event, but was rather subjected to contempt by Anasuyas of WhoseKnowledge.org.
Instead of making space for my concerns about the obliteration and deletion of apartheid memory, in particular the deletion of inter alia, pages on Student Unrest on UCT campus, Apartheid Death Squads, Apartheid Dirty Tricks, bannings of journalists and torture of editors by the regime, and/or my concerns surrounding lack of anti-apartheid digital assets and digitization of archives, she proceeded to dispute my credentials, telling me that she would 'only communicate with me when she got back to India'.
I therefore left the venue quite hurt and upset and proceeded to film some delegates entering and leaving the conference venue.
I interviewed a delegate from Brazil, a delegate from Mexico and latin America and was accosted by a Wikimedia Foundation official who inst
On 19 Jul 2018 7:41 pm, "James Alexander" jalexander@wikimedia.org wrote:
Dear Mr. Lewis,
My name is James Alexander, I am the Operations Manager for Trust & Safety at the Wikimedia Foundation.
I am writing to tell you that we have decided to cancel your registration to Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town for tomorrow (Friday), Saturday and Sunday. If you choose to try and attend anyway you will be asked to leave.
I realize that this may seem a bit abrupt however we received complaints from attendees feeling uncomfortable about your behavior at the Decolonizimg the Internet conference earlier this week in addition to concerns about your behavior at WikiIndaba in Tunis earlier this year. As I am sure you understand we need to take the safety and comfort of our attendees as a paramount concern and the decision has been made that at this time your attendance would disrupt that too much. I am sorry that this message came to you so close to the actual event as it did but unfortunately we were not able to fully understand the situation until today.
As always please let me know if there is any questions and I appreciate your understanding.
James Alexander
Manager, Trust & Safety
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation
ead of upholding my rights as a citizen, proceeded to attack my standing as a member of the press in public.
I had to inform her that South Africa has a free press and also that the preamble to our constitution compels citizens and non-citizens alike, to respect those who fought during the struggle for freedom.
I therefore once again, provide you with an opportunity to correct your course of action, to restore my credentials at the conference and to make space for apartheid memory.
https://medialternatives.com/about/