UN Demands Removal Of China Poster At Net Event

TAREK EL-TABLAWY

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) — United Nations officials forced free-speech advocates to take down a poster over its reference to China's Web restrictions at an Internet conference focused on freedom, saying Monday that it violated a ban on posters at events organized by the world body.

The OpenNet Initiative, which focuses on Internet freedom around the world, had placed a banner at the Internet Governance Forum mentioning China's censorship of the Web. U.N. officials said an unnamed delegation objected to the poster, and others objected to another flier from the group also relating to China.

"We have a no poster policy, be they commercial or political," Markus Kummer, the forum secretariat's executive coordinator, told The Associated Press.

He said the OpenNet Initiative had been granted a meeting room after officials were unable to accommodate their late request for an exhibition booth at the forum.

The policy exists because "we don't want to turn into a censorship office," he said. "Had they had the booth, that would have been the place to put the poster."