[Foundation-l] Wikimania 2008 will happen in Alexandria, Egypt

[phoebe ayers]

(resend to the foundation list, plus a postscript)

On 10/9/07, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:

> > Cary Bass wrote:
> > > The Jury for Wikimania 2008 bids have met and are pleased to announce
> > > that Wikimania 2008 will be held in Alexandria, Egypt.
> >
> > I'm offended that the desire to have Wikimania hop around the globe
> > (rotation) trumps the egregious history Egypt has with LGBT and other
> > civil rights (local laws). While visitors to Egypt are certainly not at
> > the same risk, I refuse to spend any money in a country that -- as
> > recently as 2004 -- sentenced someone to 17 years of prison and two
> > years of hard labor for posting a personal ad on a gay website[1]. A
> > blogger was imprisoned in 2007 for four years for "insulting Islam and
> > defaming the President of Egypt."[2] Jimmy Wales even attended the
> > Amnesty conference denouncing the censorship. No legal or cultural
> > reforms since give me confidence that the situation has improved.
> >
> > Wikimedia and its projects have an abundance of people from marginalized
> > groups and political advocacy organizations participating at every
> > level. A place that persecutes, censors, and prosecutes such groups
> > under the banner of snuffing out "Satanism" is not a location that
> > affirms the pluralism and intellectual freedom of Wikimedia.
> >
> > People raised these objections early in the bidding process, but I have
>
> As a jury member, I do not remember any comments from you on this
> subject, David; perhaps I missed them. At any rate, what are you
> trying to accomplish by sending this message after the winner was
> announced, and not before when we were discussing the bids?
>
> Wikimania and Wikimedia are both global in scope, which means that
> while we can condemn censorship and loss of human rights everywhere we
> must also take into account a global range of values. Our projects
> focus specifically on free knowledge, and I expect that will be
> highlighted at the conference.
>
> -- phoebe


p.s. as a postscript to this message which I also sent to wikimania-l, I'd
like to point out that this is not a closed process, and if anyone feels as
strongly about the criteria as David does, a message to the 2009 jury would
be appreciated. We the jurors did our best good-faith effort to incorporate
community concerns and use our own best judgment about this often
contentious process; but we cannot fully represent the community without
community feedback. We got little to no response to our calls for feedback
on the criteria. Such sweeping statements as David makes are certainly best
backed up with a little effort to provide data while decisions are being
made.