By Remmy Nweke

The African Civil Society for the Information Society (ACSIS) yesterday sent a letter of complaint to the president of the conference demanding to know why they had been forbidden from actively participating at the opening ceremony.
“We were denied a speech slot, thereby barring us from bringing the grassroots message to the conference,” read the document titled “Civil Society Exclusion from Conference Opening Ceremony.
The group of over 150 participants, alleged it was difficult to gain access to the main hall, and they were not allowed make their positions known to the hall of delegates.
The media was at first denied access into the venue. When they were eventually allowed in, most were asked to go to the upper gallery where audio recording was next to impossible and basic accessories such as head phones for understanding translations were not made available.
A similar situation occurred at the first WSIS phase in Geneva, where the media caucus and other groups were only given five minutes to state their positions on the Information Society.
The African Youth ICT4D Network (AYIN) launched yesterday, has also condemned the exclusion of civil society organisations.
African civil society groups have requested a slot in today’s closing ceremony to air their concerns. At the time of going to print, no word had been received from the conference director.