<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Thank you Andrea. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">So they considered Freedom House (<a href="https://freedomhouse.org/country/oman">scored 24</a> out of 100) AND Human Rights Watch and they still said naaa Oman is where we are going to meet with no real engagement plan with the locals. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">This is not just about protecting the attendees of the meeting. This is also about how safe the locals are going to feel to participate at an ICANN forum and interact with the participants. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Now the question that we must ask is are we by participating benefiting the government, giving it more legitimacy, are we bringing stability and peace? Are we contributing to the Omanis civil society knowledge of Internet governance? When the expat community is so controlled (which in oppressive countries it usually is) then it would be really hard to do these things. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">Talking from experience, when living in a country with a terrible human rights and Internet freedom record, usually we were very excited when conferences brought foreigners inside the country that was otherwise very isolated. It did give us a chance to learn more about their work. It gave them a chance to see the country (however limited experience) But at the same time it was very controlled, we didn't even know where they were meeting, the government did not really publicize the event and our journalists did not have many opportunities to attend those conferences. Also it was a bit of a security risk to attend those conferences. So We can't just say we protect our own. If we do that we might as well go to a resort and have a meeting. Can we have plans in place for some outreach? for creating safe spaces for people to attend or at least know about it? Do we know what the journalists and exiled activists or those inside think? I don't know if the Board has considered all those questions. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><br></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif">Farzaneh </font></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Sep 26, 2024 at 1:27 PM Andrea Glandon <<a href="mailto:andrea.glandon@icann.org">andrea.glandon@icann.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg-17393268128673081">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif">ICANN Blog just published regarding ICANN84 in Muscat, Oman: <a href="https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/icann84-in-muscat-oman-addressing-community-concerns-26-09-2024-en" title="https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/icann84-in-muscat-oman-addressing-community-concerns-26-09-2024-en" target="_blank">https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/icann84-in-muscat-oman-addressing-community-concerns-26-09-2024-en</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:13.5pt"><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(17,17,17)">Andrea Glandon</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black"><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:13.5pt"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Policy Operations Sr. Coordinator<u></u><u></u></span></p>
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