[Community-Discuss] "Fighting Internet Shutdown" - Any Role for AFRINIC?

[Chevalier du Borg]

2017-04-13 13:21 GMT+04:00 Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>:

>  I wonder how AFRINIC can futher leverage on this to drive down the point
> about why government needs to stop considering a shutdown of internet or
> certain service as an option.
>


You think this logic will make sense to the brain of a dictator?  - not
sure, unless there is legal system in place to stop that. Therefore AfriNIC
may consider a longtime plan to make sure right laws exist in each country
to prohibit shutdown. Yes, it will take long time and lot of

-- capacity building
-- lobbying (more work for board)
-- hand-holding like writing draft bills or policy paper for lawmakers.
-- have many regular conferences in Africa about this shutdowns



> One other thing that comes to mind is whether AFRINIC can be pro-active
> instead of re-active i.e they are made aware of the planned act and issue
> strong statement against it hoping that it will get to the ears of relevant
> authorities and get them to reconsider. This may also be effective if the
> relationship between AFRINIC and the AU (and regional bodies like ECOWAS,
> EAC, COMESA etc) is strengthened as that can serve as a channel of
> communication to the respective governments.
>


These body are key, including other like Mo Ibrahim Foundation. They know
the politique better than AfriNIC can. What AfriNIC can do better than all
of them is provide fact/measure/data to back up shutdowns, then work with
organisation like UNECA or World Bank to quantitate cost of these shutdown.


This must be War, not battle and let see board show some leadership here
that is strategic. AfriNIC cannot just be like IBM that sell computers to
Hitler and claim "we are not getting involve in politics"


-- 
Borg le Chevalier
___________________________________
"Common sense is what tells us the world is flat"
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/community-discuss/attachments/20170414/418a3747/attachment.html>