Eyes Above The Waves

Robert O'Callahan. Christian. Repatriate Kiwi. Hacker.

Thursday 26 May 2016

Stop Booking Conferences In The USA

The IETF is currently considering whether Singapore's legal climate for same-sex marriages makes it an unacceptable choice for holding meetings there. They're in a bit of a bind because they've already made non-refundable bookings there.

Meanwhile a leading US presidential candidate has made, as a centrepiece of his campaign, a promise to "temporarily" block all Muslim non-citizens from entering the USA. Should this come into effect, it would be unconscionable to block Muslims from attending international conferences and other events by holding them in the USA. Because larger conferences have to be booked far in advance, it would seem prudent to avoid booking US locations for 2017 and beyond until this issue is resolved.

FWIW just the thought of having to tick an "I am not a Muslim" box when entering the USA fills me with horror.

(I guess there's an economic hack available where you buy Muslim-ban-insurance to cover the cost of relocating and add that to the cost of a booking in the USA.)

Comments

Gerv
Do IETF meetings often feature marriages? If not, what problems does the IETF anticipate that attendees might face? There are many countries in the world which don't give their citizens freedom of religion. Is the IETF considering not booking conferences in all of them as well? You are quite right in saying that the proposed Muslim ban in the USA makes it a far more problematic place to hold conferences than Singapore.
Robert
> what problems does the IETF anticipate that attendees might face? The "IETF recent attendees" mailing list was recently CCed in the middle of a longer discussion, so I'm not sure exactly what's been raised. I think it's more "individual IETF attendees with opinions" rather than "the IETF" driving the issue. > There are many countries in the world which don't give their citizens freedom of religion. Is the IETF considering not booking conferences in all of them as well? I don't know. I would say that even most places that limit freedom of religion --- e.g. China in a lesser way, Saudi Arabia in a greater way --- would be safe for a Christian or atheist to visit if you're not looking for trouble. Having said that, I think Saudi Arabia for example would not be a good place to have an international conference. (I'm drawing a slightly made-up distinction here between "international conferences", which can choose from a variety of international locations, and conferences which are inherently tied to some location or country. If some repressive country wants to host their own conference, good luck to them I guess.)
David Baron
The issue in Singapore (quoting from https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/singapore.html which is cited by https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-announce/vHx6rvRc6IhUwicjZE63nwDDedo ) is: "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals do not enjoy full rights in Singapore. The Penal Code criminalizes any “act of gross indecency” between two men and prescribes a sentence not exceeding two years for those found guilty under this law. While the Singapore government has stated that it will not enforce this section of the penal code, the law remains on the statute books." (This (or worse) was also true in many parts of the US prior to the decision in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas in 2003.)
Gerv
So LGBT people don't have complete freedom of action in Singapore. As a Christian, I don't have complete freedom of action in, say, Saudi Arabia - if I start street preaching, I will soon be stopped and probably arrested. I'm not quite sure why "all attendees should be able to take any action which is legal in their home countries" should be a criterion for choosing a venue for IETF meetings. It would be a somewhat difficult one to meet.