Dili, Timor Leste – From August 2 to 6, the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (ACSC/APF) was held in Dili, the capital of Timor Leste with the theme”Expanding Peoples’ Solidarity for a Just and Inclusive ASEAN Community.” The said conference was participated by more than 800 representatives from civil society organizations (CSOs) in the ten ASEAN countries and Timor Leste.
Aside from the plenary sessions, there were also 36 workshops that were held on August 4 on various issues on the thematic themes that included human rights, peace-building, environment, maritime security, youth development, and other related issues.
One of the workshop sessions held was on The Internet that We Want. It was organized by Net Merdeka, an internet rights coalition based inMalaysia, in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).
The workshop highlighted the common trends and threats to internet rights and freedom in ASEAN, particularly the challenges in accessing the internet and online contents, threats of violence and harms relating to the use of ICT. It also explored ICT’s broader intersection with human rights, gender equality, social justice and democracy in ASEAN, as well as discussed effective advocacy strategies that can be taken at national and at ASEAN level through knowledge and experience sharing by speakers and participants.
FMA’s Program Coordinator for Gender and ICT, Liza Garcia, was one of the speakers for this session. She gave a context of the ICT set up in the Philippines and shared the experiences of women in using ICT. She also talked about how the Philippine Declaration on Internet Rights and Principles was developed and shared its contents with the participants.
Other speakers at the said workshop were Yasmin Masidi from Empower, Malaysia and Julius Ibrani from Indonesia. ###
0 Comments