[pima.nius] Media release: Pacific Commonwealth media/gender activist blocked from attending Commonwealth People's Forum

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lisa Williams-Lahari <lisa.lahari@gmail.com>
Date: 2009/11/24
Subject: [pacific-journos] Media release: share, comment, publish -- Pacific Commonwealth media/gender activist blocked from attending Commonwealth People's Forum
To: Pacific WAVE Media Network <pacificwave@googlegroups.com>, pacnews1 <pacnews1@connect.com.fj>, PACNEWS Suva <pacnews@connect.com.fj>

 

Pacific media activist blocked from pre-CHOGM meet

 Nov 24, 2009 COOK ISLANDS--Pacific media and gender activist Lisa Williams-Lahari has asked the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Kamalesh Sharma to push for an independent review to uncover why she was deliberately blocked from pre-CHOGM meetings this week. Organisers the Commonwealth Foundation had already offered to fund her participation which would have placed Lahari in Trinidad tomorrow leading interactive sessions on gender based violence and disability, and HIV/AIDS.

Lahari only found out about her 'disinvited' status earlier this month.  After spending weeks waiting on responses to emails and questions, she was finally told her registration -- needed to gain entry and donor support for travel to Trinidad -- was unable to be granted because of being "heavily oversubscribed." 

"I went from an invitation, my name on a program and preparing for my sessions in September, to a wall of silence six weeks long when I did my ticket booking and sent the itinerary in. To date no one at the Foundation has withdrawn their invite. They simply pretend it never happened." says Lahari.

 She says it's likely her commentary to the Foundation management over the impact of their decision to suspend a program manager active in HIV/AIDS and gender networks, and another decision to do a u-turn on support for HIV/AIDS, may have led to her being 'disinvited' but felt this had nothing to do with her role resourcing the pre-CHOGM meeting.

 "I felt disappointed because Fiji's suspension is already taking its toll on gender regionalism for Pacific civil society networks. We've always left it in the past to our Fiji sisters to take the lead as they did in Nadi 2005, and later in Uganda in 2007 and most of our networks are based in Fiji. In the end, I just wished the Foundation a good meeting and moved on."

But late last week Lahari was leaked proof that she was intentionally blocked from registering for the civil society assemblies.  She laid a formal complaint with Foundation staff and has written to Pacific High Commissions in London, as well as the Secretary general Kamalesh Sharma, to review the situation which led to her "discriminatory treatment".

"Anyone would have expected a note to say 'sorry, we've found a better person to meet our needs'. But that never happened. They just kept repeating as if on automatic -- 'sorry, you can't register because it's too late' -- and as I discovered, they were asking someone from Tonga to rush his details in after brushing me off!"

 "I know the Foundation would like for me and all this mess to go away quietly. But this isn't about me. Who else have they done this to as a way of silencing people who are simply seeking information? Who is next? These school yard games are not what you expect from an organisation mandated to serve and support civil society and its own vision of democracy."

 

 "It would be great if Pacific leaders heading to CHOGM also ask what happened and tell the Commonwealth they want to see an independant report rather than an internal cover up. We are talking about a global body where the Pacific is a major caucus -- both at government and civil society levels. Just how seriously the staff in London take that ownership remains to be seen." ENDS

 

Back-story: as per attached letter.

 

WAVE notes: The Pacific WAVE Media Network is made up of women whose key source of income is from work in journalism, media, and communications. We also have student members, and affiliate membership for men and development partners.  work in the Pacific region. We believe in a vision of leadership and excellence for women in the media and work through media advocacy of Section J of the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) information networking, and building bridges of understanding on how Pacific women are impacted in three current thematic areas: HIV/AIDS, Climate Change and VAW. We actively partner with and initiate activities promoting innovation towards our vision, and are a regional non-profit entity registered in the Cook Islands. 

 

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"More and more, if you're not in the digital conversation about your community, you're not in a conversation that matters"
--   Alberto Ibargüen, President, The Knight Foundation.

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