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

[David Strauss]

Brian wrote:
> Human rights is a global problem.
> 
> http://www.amnestyusa.org/Our_Issues/By_Country/page.do?id=1041024&n1=3&n2=30

Your link, on Egypt:
"Amnesty International has long-standing concerns on systematic torture,
deaths of prisoners in custody, unfair trials, arrests of prisoners of
conscience for their political and religious beliefs or for their sexual
orientation, wide use of administrative detention and long-term
detention without trial and use of the death penalty. In addition, AI is
concerned that armed opposition groups have renewed attacks on civilians
after several years of quiet."

"The country has been in a State of Emergency since 1981, and despite
minor reforms, State of Emergency legislation continues to give the
government significant powers to use special courts, detain political
prisoners and limit speech."

Failure to recognize the scale of abuse is tantamount to a sex educator
saying condoms are pointless because everything they can help to prevent
can still potentially happen with their use.

> You've got to pick your battles. Persecution of those in the GLBT community
> is not going to stop in Egypt if we boycott holding Wikimania there because
> of it.

Yes, but it does have an impact to tell a community that many tens of
thousands of U.S. dollars (or equivalent) will not come because of their
country's human rights record. That money can go to a community that
supports our values.

> While it's possible to go and rank each country by some factor of
> abuses, it's more reasonable, and beneficial to the Wikimedia Foundation, to
> multiply out the common denominator (the worst possible cases
> notwithstanding). If anything, Egypt needs Wikimania to be there to
> facilitate the spread of information in order to counter these deeply rooted
> biases. If you really want to spread information somewhere, the best
> possible way is a physical presence.

How is an insular, primarily English-speaking convention going to do that?

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