On Feb. 5th, nineteen civic, social and human rights organizations in South Korea hold a press conference in front of the U.S. embassy protesting against the US-VISIT and criticized that it was an apparent violation of human right.

In July 2000, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) of Korea pronounced an act called 'Communication Order Act', which has introduced the PICS(Platform for Internet Content Selection) under the broad framework of Internet Content Rating System. This act manifestly shows the government's intent to control the world of WWW: the authorities concerned does not try to make the on-line world the more creative and critical space but they are attempting to tame the netizens in terms of their own rules and perspectives.

The goals of the conference were to gather information on the Asian ICT industry and internet right issues in Asian countries, and to form international solidarity in order to better defend those rights.

We from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, Sweden, the U.K., the United States and Korea participanted the Asia Internet Rights Conference on November 8-10, and discussed the issues and the challenges of promoting and protecting internet rights in our respective countries. We hereby believe the importance of the internet rights for Asia people and the capacity of Asian people's solidarity, despite the diversity of experiences shared by each participant.