The international conference on the Internet Rights (IR) issues in Asia will be held from Nov. 8 to 10 in Seoul, South Korea. The name of this event is "Asia Internet Rights International Conference." It is being jointly organized by JCA-Net (a progressive NGO in Japan) and Korean Progressive Network (South Korea). The aim of this conference is to discuss and share information regarding the situation of Information & Communications Technologies (ICTs) and social movements in Asia. The Japan Foundation will fund this conference.

The Internet is now taken for granted as an essential ingredient for citizen participation in politics, business and education, for socialising and for everyday information exchange. At the same time, the rapid spread of this medium is driving the creation of policies and laws around copyright, freedom of speech and content control, access rights and measures to preserve individual online safety. And, there continues to be a serious lack of attention given to the basic Internet access, training, usage and freedom of expression needs of civil society in the creation and implementation of legislation and policy that concerns communications and media ? especially in developing countries. In addition, issues of cultural and linguistic diversity, and intellectual property, are often mentioned as areas of concern, but seldom addressed in a proactive manner. Few civil society organisations (CSOs) are aware of the policy developments taking place at the global, regional and national levels that impact on their ability and/or potential to use ICTs as a tool in their work, let alone own or control the production and application of these technologies locally.

We, civil society organizations, need to react more actively to the change or threat driven by the development of information and communication technology and global capital. In this context, Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is organizing the Internet Rights Project in each region, Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia. Asia Internet Rights Conference is the start point of the Asia Internet Rights Project.

This conference we are planning is a part of APC's IR Project and we hope to evaluate and to make clear what kind of issues there are in Asian countries, how Asians have been fighting against those issues. Perhaps, we will discuss how to make international solidarity against the oppression that might endanger our rights to communication on the web.

Through this conference, We could overview the situation about IT industry and internet right issues in Asian countries and discuss how CSO could act to protect internet rights and how we could co-work together.