Subject: Re: Request for community guidance on issue concerning a future meeting of the IETF

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:24:29 -0400 (EDT)

> From: Dean Willis <[email-masked]>

    > there are a lot of people in the world who will be looking for ways
    > to make the PRC government over-react against the IETF, resulting in
    > an international incident that is embarrassing or otherwise damaging
    > to the PRC.

I normally agree with Dean on very little, but I think he has an
interesting point here - because I was thinking the exact same thing
earlier this morning, that someone with an axe to grind could make use of
this.

Of course, it's not at all clear that such an attempt would succeed:
during the Olympics, a number of foreign activists tried to stage small
protests - and were quickly seized by the authorities, and put on planes
out of the country. I would expect the same measured, but strict, reaction
here.

    > Are our members who are Falun Gong practitioners going to be
    > persecuted for their beliefs while attending IETF? Are our members
    > who are active in Tibetan or Taiwanese independence movements going
    > to be quietly picked up off the street outside our venue? 

More likely they just wouldn't be given visas to begin with. That happened
at the Olympics, too.

	Noel

---

From: Stewart Bryant <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:31:21 +0100

> More likely they just wouldn't be given visas to begin with. That happened

So we need to know how many people who would normally attend would
expect to be denied visas.

- Stewart