MINUTES OF THE JUNE 21, 1997 TELECONFERENCE MEETING
Start time: 11.15 am
End time: 2.15 pm
Attendees:
Ahmed Ahmed-Yahia
Ahmed Bouzid
Karim Diff : facilitator
Myriam Nia: scribe
Agenda: The following agenda was reviewed and adopted by all the attendees.
* Review agenda meeting:
* Share impressions /thoughts/feelings on letter project
- Titles
- Organizations
- Letter on web
- Coordinator's role with the new committee ( Ahmed's)
* Discuss logistics of e-mail coordination, and in general, how to
make interaction between us more efficient and smoother.
* Discuss issue of communicating with a-net
- Karim's role as the group's spokesman in AN
- Issues to avoid
* Discuss Web site for AW
- Feedback on the structure ( design of the web-page)
- Deadline
* Discuss definition of AW mission
* Discuss September trip
* Discuss Plan for next steps
~~ Next teleconference meeting date is not fixed yet but the attendees
agreed on a possible meeting in August before the trip in September.
Details:
~~ Details on the points proposed in the agenda:
~Review agenda meeting: agenda has been reviewed in its proposed
form, and adopted by all the attendees.
~~Share impressions /thoughts/feelings on letter project
~The dissolution of the group: The attendees agreed on postponing the
dissolution of the drafting committee till July 6, 1997. No
announcement of AW birth will be made on Algeria-net until AW
mission is well defined and completed. Karim was appointed to
respond privately to any AN-member's request on the future activities
of the drafting committee/group.
~Titles: All attendees objected the idea of affixing titles to
signatures. The group's coordinator ( Ahmed) will keep the new
committee informed of this objection.
~ New committee: all the attendees stressed the importance for the
new committee to look first for a consensus from the drafting
committee before making any decision on the letter or its
signature list. The group's coordinator ( Ahmed) will convey
the message to the new committee.
~Organizations:
--Political parties are excluded from the list of potential
organizations to contact.
--Organizations that are in doubt or those some netters were
concerned about, will be investigated with the help of the
netters themselves who will be asked to elaborate on the
issue by giving more pertinent information, details in
showing the problems.
--Some organizations will be removed from the list because
they don't deal with human rights at all.
--Snail mail: Hamoudi agreed to take care of the snail mail:
sending the letter to the selected organizations on July
5th ( post-office service).
~Letter on the web: All attendees agreed to post/publish the letter
on the web pages and/or newspapers of the following organization:
Algeria-net, Hidjra, and AW. For that purpose Karim will e-mail or
get in touch with the concerned people in Switzerland, Smail Boua
for AN web page and Nacer Menad for Salam news.
~~Discuss logistics of e-mail coordination, and in general, how to make
interaction between us more efficient and smoother.
~ In order for the group to be more efficient in the way the work is
carried out, Ahmed proposed to have a coordinator within the
group itself to keep things on track by checking the information,
regulating its flow, and making it smoother between the members of
the group. All the attendees agreed on the idea and decided to assign
a coordinator on a weekly basis. Every Friday night, a summary on
the activities of that week, and a sort of plan of actions for the
coming week will be posted to the group. Ahmed agreed to be the
coordinator for the week July 22-30, 1997.
~ On a proposition from Ahmed and Karim, a standard form of subject
headings was adopted by the attendees to manage the e-communication
and e-mail between the attendees in a more efficient way. For each
topic or issue raised, the subject heading would remain the same
followed by a number which indicates the degree of importance or
emergency to reply to or read. The number 1 stands for " to read
right away", 2 stands for " can be read 24h from this time forward",
and 3 stands for "regular: you don't want to answer immediately".
~ To have a better control on the tasks, every attendee agreed on
e-mailing his/her schedule to the rest of the group. A compilation
of all the schedules will be made in order to have an idea on who is
now on machine and who will be it later. Hamoudi will be able to
send his schedule only at the end of June.
~ Myriam mentioned that a new e-mail address is available for AW
as mmmouzao@mansci2.uwaterloo.ca. The matter of having AW as an
alias instead of mmmouzao, will be investigated.
~~Discuss issue of communicating with a-net / new committee
~ Ahmed is appointed Coordinator between the group and the new
committee for the letter.
~ Karim is appointed Spokesman of the group when communicating with
A-net.
~ All the attendees agreed on not engaging in flamed political
exchanges on A-net
~~ Discuss Web site for AW
~July 6, 1997 is the fixed deadline to send the first draft of the
AW web-page. Feedback on the draft will be received by Myriam and
considered in designing the final version of the web page.
~Minutes will be put in the internal part of AW web-page.
~~ Discuss definition of AW mission
~ Hamoudi suggested to formulate the "democracy concept" of AW on the
web page. All agreed
~Karim proposed that every attendee writes his/her "vision" of what
the AW project is all about as well as how the current situation in
Algeria is perceived by everyone. All agreed to send this feedback
whenever the time allows it during the next two weeks.
~Principles were proposed by Ahmed and debated among the attendees.
The main issue came in form of a question: what is the
good position that AW should take to fulfill its mission while its
neutrality is preserved and its principles are respected ? The
attendees realized the complexity of the answer and how some aspects
in the mission can be ambiguous when they are thought to be simple.
For example denouncing the violence would it be in reference to the
law? or to the government? or just to the universal definition of the
human rights? no answer was provided since no consensus was reached
but all agreed that denouncing killings of innocent civilians
should be done explicitly even if the group is not able to find out
who is to blame for the killing. Remaining silent should be avoided
In the case where the authors of the killing are identified, the
reference sources should always be mentioned when denouncing. All
agreed. The Attendees decided to take more time to think about
the AW mission through the exercise/assignment proposed by Karim in
the previous point above and to finalize the mission text as
well as the charter's in their meeting in September.
~ The human rights aspect that AW will deal with is not limited to
the Algerians in Algeria only but to the Algerians all over the
world therefore Asylum and persecution of Algerians outside Algeria
are considered in the AW mission.
~ Karim's question on whether an AW member can be affiliated to a
political party, followed by Ahmed's question on What is the role
of an AW member, allowed the attendees to confirm once again
what it has already been debated before the teleconference meeting,
such as only the members of AW board should not be affiliated to any
political party. Concerning the role of a member, all agreed that
this will be defined later when the mission and charter of AW are
completed.
~An other question raised by Ahmed: Can AW join a protest's action
initiated by an international organizations ? The attendees gave
all a positive answer emphasizing the importance of the action to
fit the AW mission.
~ Karim stressed the importance of learning by doing and teaching
ourselves to acquire knowledge and information on the different
systems of Politics, Law, Economics etc. This approach will help
the group's strategy in long term and keep them informed of whe
the trade/political/economic agreements signed with Algeria. In
other terms what are the discussions about and what is going on in
Algeria. All agreed.
~Women chapter: All agreed on the principle to set up the sub-chapter.
~~ Discuss September trip
~September 1st - weekend was chosen as the date of the meeting. All
agreed to meet in Hamoudi's house, in Milwaukee. The work meeting
will take on Saturday and Sunday.
~Hamoudi and Ahmed proposed to help Karim with the plane ticket's
cost. Karim will keep the group informed of the plane ticket's
price. Ahmed will probably fly too. Myriam will certainly drive if
the trip takes less than 10 hours.
~~Discuss plan for next steps
~A teleconference will be held in August before the trip in September.
The date will be fixed later.
~~ Miscellaneous
~ Building the AW library ---> start to think about it
~ Setting a list of people of different qualifications ( lawyer,
economist, etc.) as potential information resources to help AW.
~ How to register an association/organization? ---> any info is
welcome. Ahmed will bring also his book on the matter!
The teleconference was closed July 21, 1997, at 2.15 p.m. It lasted almost
3 hours.
This page has been visited 
times.