Re: [ICANN-EU] Article 31

["Constantine S. Chassapis" <cschassapis@acm.org>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Erik Moeller <moeller@scireview.de>
To: <icann-europe@fitug.de>
Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 2:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ICANN-EU] Article 31


> On 28 Aug 2000, at 1:59, Constantine S. Chassapis wrote:

> > "Article 31":
> >  "Every human being has the right freely to receive material
> >   from and freely to transmit material to the cyberspace, 
> >   currently known as the Internet."

> The inevitable response: "But what about kiddie porn?"
 
Dear Erik,
Very good point! If I will manage to elucidate that, I will 
give more essence to Article 31 (A31 hereon).
 
I first answer you with the articles
A1:  All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act 
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
A3:  Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
A16.3:  The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society 
and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
A25.2:  Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and 
assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall 
enjoy the same social protection.
A26.2:  Education shall be directed to the full development of the human 
personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and 
fundamental freedoms. 
 
As my A31 is a principle, so are those that I quoted above.
 
That means that if the above articles are self-evident and protect
the children and educate the grown-ups, so self-evident seems to
me my A31. I cannot set up a police-oriented principle. It is
the duty of all local societies or countries, at start, and of the 
whole humanity next, to try to eradicate child porn. This is not just
words. We must separate principles of human existence from
methodologies to define and attack the evil. I might as well add 
an A32 saying that child porn is illegal, is immoral, is disgusting, 
is inhuman, is ... but all these are consequences of all the articles
above. If organized societies and their institutions fulfil their 
principal duties as expressed in the articles above, if we,
all humans understand and follow the above principles,
then, we will make a better world! My A31 also speaks
of a better world.
 
The world changes, society and technology change one another
and from the epoch of the December 10th, 1948, to the August
28th, 2000, a new player is in the game, it is called cyberspace, and
I am feeling that it is, or will soon become, as important as the
air we are breathing. After that thought, the next logical step is A31.
Article 31 guarantees so many things that we need many emails
to discuss, and I will be happy to do so. But it is my feeling that
you needed to hear from me my views on child porn, and I think,
it is clear from all my argumentation how bad I feel about that.
 
In other words, I hope that you see that if we all (including our
institutions) follow, support, believe and promote articles 1 to 30, 
then child porn will be erased from humanity <small>(except maybe
in pathological cases, I mean ill people, in which case, maybe cure 
can be applied using virtual reality techniques; but this is a totally 
different story)</small>. 

But, articles 1 to 30 do not induce the guaranteeing of what 
A31 guarantees. This is why I wrote it and I will try to promote. 
 
Sincerely,
Constantin Chassapis