[rpd] New Policy Proposal - "Anti-Shutdown (AFPUB-2017-GEN-001-DRAFT-01)"

[Timothy Ola Akinfenwa]

+1 Seun, Arsené and Badru

​The case of Internet
Shutdown is not only ​sensitive but very serious and should be treated as
such.

13.1 In the event of an internet shutdown performed at the order of a
government that is either total or partial:

   1. For a period of 12 months following the end of the shutdown – AFRINIC
   will allocate no resources to the government of the country. This also
   applies to all government owned entities and entities that have direct
   provable relationships with said government.


How do you justify the highlighted segment? I'm glad Andrew said the
authors are ready to reword this area to prevent the innocent ones
from suffering for no just cause. My people say that "Government will only
cut the finger(s) that sinned" (literally). There must be a justifiable
reason to paralyze the activities of academic institutions and agencies of
Governments who are individual AFRINIC members just because their
respective Governments ordered an internet shutdown.

The issues raised by Badru on whether AFRINIC has a mandate to perform this
policing role should also be considered.

Someone on the list has also asked if a similar policy is already in place
in other regions. We need info on this please, it might just help the
community to move forward in the right direction.

I also think the "Secret Working Group" may just be available to assist in
this area through dialogue with Governments with intention to shutdown or
after shutting down the internet.

In all, bringing up a policy with the objective to punish the members of
the AFRINIC community (directly or indirectly) to whom AFRINIC has been
mandated to serve is inappropriate.

Kind Regards

On Apr 12, 2017 10:10 AM, "Seun Ojedeji" <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> These are government entities(their addresses and contacts will give you a
> hint) and my point is that banning/restricting government entities because
> the presidency gave an order to shutdown the internet isn't appropriate.
> The government itself that gave the order isn't the member, it is her
> entities that are members and those entities did not need to get approval
> of the presidency to acquire their space. Going the proposed route:
>
> - Does not promote the open internet me and you are clamouring for.
> - Will not make AFRINIC sustainable in the long run
> - May serve as a distraction to AFRINIC in performing her core function of
> keeping record and administration of IP resource for our region.
> - Takes AFRINIC from being a neutral entity to being more politically
> inclined
> - In the long run, It further breaks the internet than fix it because I
> will then have to resolve to NATing if I can't get access to my space
> anymore
> - It exposes AFRINIC to unnecessary legal suits from those entities which
> AFRINIC has an agreement with, also consider the legal cost that will be
> involved
> - It affects the economy negatively and reduces competition among
> providers.
> - At first it sounds like it will help service providers which are
> privately owned but in the long run it wouldn't because some of the
> providers income can still be traced to those govt entities.
>
> Again while the intent is great, a policy at RIR level cannot be the
> solution. So this is not a matter of rewording the policy in a way that is
> acceptable its more that this isn't practical (especially if we want to
> re-word to apply to govt alone because they are not the members) and it is
> unreasonable/unfair if we want to apply it to govt entities.
>
> Regards
>
> On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 11:05 PM, Keshwarsingh Nadan <kn at millenium.net.mu>
> wrote:
>
>> >Overall, the fact that there is NO member within AFRINIC database called
>> "government" makes this proposal impractical.
>>
>>
>> whois -h whois.afrinic.net " -B -T organisation government"
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
> *Seun Ojedeji,Federal University Oye-Ekitiweb:
> http://www.fuoye.edu.ng <http://www.fuoye.edu.ng> Mobile: +2348035233535**alt
> email: <http://goog_1872880453>seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng
> <seun.ojedeji at fuoye.edu.ng>*
>
> Bringing another down does not take you up - think about your action!
>
>
>
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