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Final statement of the Pan African Civil Society workshop: Who Controls the Internet?
Pan African Civil Society
July 28, 2012

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We, participants comprising representatives of diverse civil society organizations from the human rights, media and ICT policy sectors, meeting at the Pan African Civil Society Workshop on "Who Controls the Internet" held in Nairobi, Kenya, on July 26 and 27, 2012:

• Affirm the importance of the Internet as an enabling medium for democratisation and the promotion, exercise and enjoyment of human rights;
• Recognize that the ability to access and use of the Internet has become inextricably linked to the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, as enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
• Stress the capacity and potential of the Internet to contribute to social, economic, cultural and human development;
• Express strong support for the report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion on the right to freedom of opinion and expression exercised through the Internet presented in June 2011 to the Human Rights Council (HRC) and HRC Resolution A/HRC/20/L.13 of July 5, 2012 on "the Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet" which affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online;
• Welcome the establishment in 2011 of the African Platform for Access to Information and the Freedom Online Coalition;
• Affirm that multi-stakeholder governance of the Internet at the national, regional and international levels founded on the guiding values of fundamental human rights and the public interest is essential for the effectiveness and legitimacy of Internet governance;
• Note that current Internet governance arrangements as well as recent proposals for global Internet governance reform from some governments and discussed in various intergovernmental forums do not adequately address civil society participation.

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