In the framework of the project, GIC conducted the International Expert Mission and held two-day Multi-stakeholder Consultation on the freedom of expression also online in line with the international standards on freedom of expression and the Internet. We sent letters to the international organizations, embassies, government bodies and MPs seeking additional financial support for the International Mission. And Access Now supported us for inviting one expert, Charles Kriel from Lightful.

The Multi-stakeholder Consultation successfully achieved its main objective to discuss emerging issues and challenges related to online freedom and regulations in a participatory manner with the largest possible participation, including international experts and relevant stakeholders, representative across the media and IT sector, the civil society.

We invited Mr. Toby Mendel from Centre for Law and Democracy, Canada and Mr. Charles Kriel from Lightful, UK. Two International Experts provided capacity building on the topics of International standards on freedom of expression and the Internet and attended the Consultation sharing their best practice, knowledge and experience.

The Multi-stakeholder Consultation was convened by GIC jointly with Open Society Forum (OSF) and Tsakhim Urtuu Network on 2 and 3 November 2015 at the OSF Conference Hall. It was supported by the UNESCO, Beijing Office and Access Now, and attended by more than 60 participants and 11 speakers, including national and international experts. The goal of the Consultation was to foster social dialogue in issues environment enabling freedom of expression also online in line with the international standards on freedom of expression and the Internet. The Consultation gathered a wide range of stakeholders such as media, civil society, lawyers, government, academicians and legislators as well as national and international experts to contribute to the freedom of expression issues including Internet by sharing their experiences and best practices. One of GIC commitment is to promote gender equality. GIC considers, the project ensured the gender balance moderately. The Multi stakeholder Consultation was attended by a total of 61 persons, 55 per cent of them were women. 

Toby Mendel has been working with Mongolia since 2001 when the new law on public broadcaster had been developed. He also contributed to the Right to Information Law which was adopted in 2011.

The first Day of the Consultation was moderated by Ms. P.Badamragchaa, Governance Programme Manager, OSF.  Kh.Naranjargal, GIC Head and Ts.Battuya, Member of Tsahim Urtuu Network started their opening speeches by thanking the International Experts and participants that came to share their views and contribute to the Consultation. Kh.Naranjargal highlighted need to discuss online freedom and internet governance issues.

The first day of the Consultation focused on the following topics:

-    Internet Access in Mongolia
-    International standards on freedom of expression and the Internet
-    Regulation of the Internet in Mongolia
-    Internet Governance Global Debate  
-    Knowledge Society

Ts.Odkhuu, Specialist, Information Technology, Post and Telecommunication Authority (ITPTA) introduced the current situation of Internet Access in Mongolia. He started by highlighting legislations related to the internet access. He underlined also use of internet in Mongolia compared to other countries, and Government policy and actions for increasing internet access in the countryside. He finished by highlighting problems and challenges in this area, namely digital divide issues, concentration of the population, digital literacy and infrastructure issues.

P.Baasankhuu, Adviser at the Department of Multilateral Cooperation of Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefed on Freedom Online Coalition, its goal and objectives and Mongolian obligations before the International Community as Chairman of the Coalition for the year 2014-2015, and the 5th annual Freedom Online Conference held in Ulaanbaatar on May 4-5, 2015 under its chairmanship.

Toby Mendel, Executive Director, Centre for Law and Democracy presented International standards on freedom of expression and the Internet. He noted, online expression is also recognized as human rights and should be protected. He highlighted principles of freedom of expression restrictions that should be imposed only by law according to the International Standards. Mendel continued, International law only allows restrictions on freedom of expression which are provided for by law, serve a legitimate interest, namely protection of the rights or reputations of others, national security, public order, and are necessary to protect that interest. Under international law, the right to freedom of expression applies to the Internet just as it does to other communication mediums.

He noted, Internet can be used to spread harmful and illegal material, such as child pornography. But simply applying rules for the print or broadcast media to the Internet does not work well. There are a number of areas where national regulation of the Internet is necessary, for example in terms of allocating national domain names. On the other hand, in many cases this goes far beyond what is necessary. Under international law, any restriction on freedom of expression has to be justified. Licensing of broadcasters, for example, is justified by reference to the limited number of frequencies and the fact that only a few of those who want to could ever operate a broadcasting station. No such constraints apply to the Internet, and so licensing cannot be justified. Indeed, it is recognized that special regulation of ISPs, including requiring them to register or obtain a license, are not legitimate. In democracies, dissemination of material over the Internet, for example via websites, is not subject to any special form of regulation. He stressed, one cannot simply apply content rules designed for offline forms of communication to the Internet. This leads to serious problems in some cases. Instead, regimes need to be tailored to the particular situation of the Internet.
  
The next session was moderated by Kh.Naranjargal. The topic Regulation of the Internet in Mongolia was presented by L.Galbaatar, Lawyer & Researcher. In his presentation Mr.Galbaatar focused on regulation of the Internet in Mongolia and online freedom. He highlighted Mongolia’s obligations under the Constitution and International law. He continued, although Mongolia as an UN Member State, adopted yet its policy and regulatory act on guarantee of human right and freedom in the digital age, however new advanced information technology and internet using practice have been increased constantly year by year.

According CRC report by the end of 2014, the number of Internet users in our country has reached 1,962,100 and 28% has increased from the previous year. This presents that, 2/3 of the total population are became the Internet regular users.

According to the International standards, citizens have the right to free expression and right to anonymity and IP addresses should be guaranteed from attacks.

In the implementation of the CRC regulation on the content, controls are taken by public bodies. Also the chairman and commissioners of the CRC are appointed and dismissed by the Prime Minister and it reports to the Government thus demonstrates that CRC is a government controlled body.

L.Galbaatar concluded his presentation by highlighting actions required for ensuring online freedom according to the International standards. The Government/Constitutional Court should abolish Government Resolution No.1, “A Unified System for Website Comments adopted by the Government on January 5, 2013; to take measures on amending the resolution No8 on “General Condition and Requirement on Digital Content” adopted by CRC in accordance with international standards and the Constitution of Mongolia and to transfer the CRC’s power to take control over the online freedom of expression to the court and law enforcement agencies.
Presentation on Internet Governance was taken by P.Badamragchaa, OSF. She highlighted issues on internet history, organizations responsible for internet operation, Internet Governance Forum. She finished her presentation by underlining OSCE recommendations and their principles related to online freedom, access to the internet, and free flow of information, ethics, intermediary liability.

B.Munkhdul, Founder of Cover Mongolia LLC shared his views and opinions on Knowledge Society issues. Participants shared their views on concerned issues.

The sessions of the first day concluded with inputs and comments of the international experts.
The second day of the Consultation was moderated by V.Ganzorig, Member of Tsahim Urtuu Network and D.Munkhburen, GIC Lawyer. The sessions were focused on the following topics:

-    Online media and self-regulation: International practices
-    Social media and ethics
-    Internet and Surveillance
-    Internet and Privacy
-    Social media and Right to Dignity

Kh.Naranjargal, GIC Head presented International practices of online media and self-regulation. She briefed best practices of other countries related to user-generated content, using social media contents, behavior of journalists at social media platforms, responding to complaints, right to anonymity and removing content. She introduced Finland’s Guideline for Media Professionals; Belgian Guideline on removing user-generated content; Netherland’s Regulation on Using Twitter for Member Journalists’ of Media Council; BBC Guideline on Using social media materials; Guideline for Associated Press’ Workers and practices of Danish and Germany Media Council. She noted, these practices can be useful for creating self-regulation practices within media organizations.

Social media and ethics were presented by Dr. Charles Kriel. Charles is an author, broadcaster and journalist, with several years’ experience travelling to conflict zones and fragile states promoting free press and civil society. He is a Co-Founder of Lightful, a global news and fundraising platform for NGOs that helps civil society organizations control their social and viral publishing.

In his presentation he noted that most governments are not vertically integrated organizations — most are capable of doing both good and harm simultaneously — and we are all aware that technology has become a vehicle for riding both roads. He suggested looking at examples of both constructive and destructive practices in the context of social media ethics. Kriel shared good practices to consider: how some governments funds NGOs for developing social media tools and strategies to help independent journalists and news organizations, how they use social media for disaster readiness and response, and good practices being done through social media. For example, making famous corrupt and racist police forces through social media and using social media for social mobilization.

He mentioned examples of how governments are doing the wrong thing with social media, total surveillance as the dominant threat to freedom of expression, how authoritarian governments go directly to individual content creators and coerce them into deleting material through intimidation and torture. Not only governments but criminal gangs often use social media to track and intimidate individuals, activists and journalists, he stressed.

He stated that legislating the internet, the web and social media is challenging because it means legislating freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Plus governments around the world use internet legislation as a sneaky back door policy to total surveillance, and suppression of free speech. What is needed is legislation on data collection.

And indeed there is legislation regarding data collection, but in even the most open societies internet service providers are being made to collect data on users and hold this for several years for possible government inspection. Governments access this data through warrants or even through threats of withdrawal of business license — and although legally it is debatable whether this is outside the context of the civil society, in spirit it certainly is. The fact is, governments should be legislating against the collection of personalized data outside the very direct consent of the citizen.

Charles Kriel summarized, governments have a strong role to play in social media ethics — in educating young people in their use, in disseminating vital information to citizens, and in protecting the rights of individuals online to speak freely whilst still maintaining their privacy, and operating without fear.

Toby Mendel has taken presentation on Internet and Surveillance. He focused on international human rights standards and international law for conducting surveillance. He addressed the challenge of online surveillance that tracking all online behavior and information. e.g. information about information. He highlighted that any kind of monitoring or tracking of any form of communication, tracking of your behavior, including metadata - information about information. Surveillance closely related to privacy issues. If you realize that somebody tracking you, you can’t express yourself. He introduced types of surveillance conducted by public actors or private actors, for different reason, Facebook or Google for advertising or commercial reason. New technologies used not only by governments also but terrorists and criminal groups. Safety should be ensured in order to conduct surveillance, he stated.

He shared international human rights standards, that governments should follow in order to conduct surveillance, because there is a gap between government actions and international standards. First standard is that system of surveillance should be established by clear public legal laws; surveillance is restriction of FoE so it must be provided by law according to international standard. Unfortunately, there is no legislation in Mongolia ensuring the standard, he pointed out.

Second, general activity of surveillance must be open about them, how many people it involved, what kinds of activities they focusing on. Service providers must inform that they received these types of request. Google published annual report on how many governments requested information. Illegal surveillance is a violation to human right, emphasized Toby Mendel.

State should always publish information about illegal surveillance and follow international law and standards, he highlighted. Third, Special Rapporteurs declared that purposeless and overall surveillance is illegal. Every tracking should be conducted after determining the necessity. Most tracking are purposeless and untargeted. Fourth, there should be independent oversight bodies for intelligence authority that conducted surveillance. He stated that everyone has the right to encryption and state should not stop you.
Dash Munkburen, GIC Lawyer presented Internet and Privacy in the context of international standards and Mongolian situation. Previously she has conducted survey on privacy related issues in Mongolia. In the beginning of her presentation, she mentioned protection of privacy provided by international law and standards. She highlighted internet global principles and four keystones. The 4 principles are human rights based, open, accessible to all and multi-stakeholder participation. (R-O-A-M) She introduced protection of privacy in Mongolian legislation. She also addressed the challenge of information safety, right to anonymity and privacy. In Mongolia almost all public and business bodies require private and sensitive information of citizens, and there is no guarantee that they could provide safety of those collected information. She summarized, Government’s decree of 2013 imposes government oversight on online comments and violates free expression and right to anonymity. Moreover, state digital service system requires all private information that is risky for individual and human rights. Public officers’ awareness on information safety is insufficient. She stressed, safety of those information collected by private and business entities not ensured well. 

Third Session was moderated by D.Munkburen, GIC. Another speaker was Ch.Bat-Uyanga, Researcher of Tugeemel Erh NGO. She presented the topic Social media and Right to Dignity. In the beginning of her presentation, she addressed issue of freedom of expression, online expression and its limitations. She stressed that in the recent years the cases of bloggers and individuals that face criminal and civil charges for online expression have increased. She also shared libel and defamation cases, local and international, related to online and social media, and court decisions related to them. She recommended using in court practices International Conventions and standards to which Mongolia is a party, to include provisions on protection of online freedom of expression to the Media Freedom Bill, to raise public awareness on ethics and respecting of others rights and privacy.

Kh.Naranjargal introduced UPR and MDI Recommendations to the Government. An Assessment on Media Development in Mongolia, based on UNESCO/IPDC’s MDIs has been completed by GIC in collaboration with CMJ, Press Institute and Transparency Fund. A wide set of recommendations on media environment improvements have been elaborated in the framework of the MDI Assessment and developed with the involvement of more than 150 representatives from across the Mongolian media sector (public and private broadcasters as well as media associations), public bodies, the civil society, national and international experts.

Freedom of expression, particularly online freedom is getting alarming in Mongolia and it is evidenced by arrests and criminal defamation cases against a social media blogger and web journalists, filtering, licensing and blocking of the news and information web sites, disclose of the IP addresses of the users posting comments in the news web site, so GIC has submitted the separate report on freedom of expression the UN UPR. On May 5, 2015, the UN Human Rights Council has reviewed the Mongolian national submission for the Human Rights Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva and eight recommendations regarding freedom of expression made by Switzerland, United States of America, France, Germany, Estonia, Czech Republic, Ireland and Austria to align the domestic legislation with international standards, to decriminalize defamation, to adopt the law on protecting confidential sources, to guarantee the online freedom and provide and to provide the independence of the regulatory body. The above issues also were highlighted in the aforementioned media development assessment report. GIC has developed an Action Plan to follow up the implementation of the UPR and MDI assessment.

At the end of the Roundtable Ts.Battuya, a member of Tsahim Urtuu Network introduced a set of recommendations on creating positive environment for regulation of the Internet developed by the Mongolian participants to the 5th Freedom Online Conference held in May 2015.