Navi Pillay
compares uproar over mass surveillance to response that helped defeat apartheid
during Today programme
theguardian.com,
Haroon Siddique, Thursday 26 December 2013
 |
| Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Navi Pillay, during a press conference in Geneva earlier this month. Photograph: Martial Trezzini/AP |
The UN
human rights chief, Navi Pillay, has compared the uproar in the international
community caused by revelations of mass surveillance with the collective
response that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Pillay, the
first non-white person to serve as a high court judge in South Africa, made the
comments in an interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme, which the World Wide Web inventor was guest editing.
Pillay has
been asked by the UN to prepare a report on protection of the right to privacy,
in the wake of classified documents being leaked by the former National
Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden about UK and US spying and the
collection of personal data.
The former
international criminal court judge said that her encounters with serious human
rights abuses, which included serving on the Rwanda tribunal, did not make her
take internet privacy less seriously.
"I
don't grade human rights," she said. "I feel I have to look after and
promote the rights of all persons. I'm not put off by the lifetime experience
of violations I have seen."
She said
apartheid ended in South Africa principally because the international community
co-operated to denounce it, adding: "So, I see how combined and collective
action by everybody can end serious violations of human rights and really that
experience inspires me to go on and address the issue of internet [privacy]
which right now is extremely troubling because the revelations of surveillance
have implications for human rights … People are really afraid that all their
personal details are being used in violation of traditional national
protections." She described it as a grave issue.
The UN general assembly unanimously voted last week to adopt a resolution, introducedby Germany and Brazil, stating that "the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy".
Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel ,
were among those spied on, according to the documents leaked by Snowden. The
resolution called on the 193 UN member states "to review their procedures,
practices and legislation regarding the surveillance of communications, their
interception and collection of personal data, with a view to upholding the
right to privacy of all their obligations under international human rights
law". It also directed Pillay to publish a report on the protection and
promotion of privacy "in the context of domestic and extraterritorial
surveillance ... including on a mass scale". She told Berners-Lee that it
was "very important that governments now want to discuss the matters of
mass surveillance and right to privacy in a serious way".
Berners-Lee
has warned that online surveillance undermines confidence in the internet and
last week published an open letter, with more than 100 free speech groups and
leading activists, to protest against the routine interception of data by
governments around the world.
Related Articles:
Edward Snowden broadcasts Channel 4's alternative Christmas Day message
Snowden Declares 'Mission Accomplished'
Edward Snowden broadcasts Channel 4's alternative Christmas Day message
Snowden Declares 'Mission Accomplished'
No comments:
Post a Comment