[Foundation-l] Concern for the safety of Wikimedians at Wikimania in Alexandria.

[Mark Williamson]

Yes, and I think Gerard's "When you insist on behaving in a manner
that is offensive to others your safety can not be guaranteed." is
perhaps putting it the wrong way. That statement certainly offended
me.

On 03/03/2008, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester at gmail.com> wrote:
> When the Wikimedia Foundation puts us in a situation that our mere
> existence is offensive to others, and our mere existence in a country
> endangers our safety, it's a good sign we should not be holding
> conferences there. Being openly jewish, gay, or a westernized woman is
> offensive to some in Egypt, and unless one is forced to subject
> themselves to coercive rules and limitations that, I should mention,
> fundamentally violate standard human rights, then their safety cannot
> be guaranteed.
>
> I don't know how this isn't clear to you Gerard. When we have a
> situation where our conference attendee's sexual preferences, gender,
> religion, and birth country must hidden or denied, in order to assure
> their safety, we simply should NOT be hosting conferences there. It is
> an implicit statement that Wikimedia does not support human rights --
> the right to freedom of religion, freedom of nationality, freedom of
> sexual preference, and freedom from gender discrimination. It's
> absolutely unacceptable to say "Instead of admitting that we picked a
> stupid place to host a conference, we're going to stand by it and
> force our conference goers to choose between their safety, and their
> human rights." That's a fundamentally wrong thing for the Wikimedia
> Foundation to do, but it's precisely what they've been doing.
>
> -Dan
>
> On Mar 3, 2008, at 6:09 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>
> > In the end it is about freedom. The freedom that is available to you
> > is limited by the freedom available to others. When you insist on
> > behaving
> > in a manner that is offensive to others your safety can not be
> > guaranteed. The rights and the treatment that you take for granted
> > in your
> > normal environment is not necessarily what will be available in other
> > environments. This is rather elementary I would say.
>
>
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