Discussions on Censorship and Legal Legislations at the Beacon for Freedom Conference at the BA
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Alexandria—
The second session of the Beacon for Freedom Conference entitled “Circulation of Information” took place on Tuesday, 22 April, 2008 at the BA, and discussed the importance of access to information and freedom of expression.
The session was moderated by Shahira Amin, TV Presenter, and participants were: Dr. Hossam Lotfy, Professor of Civil Law and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Law, Beni Suif University; Dr. Hussein Abdel Aziz, Professor of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University and Advisor in the Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC); Jan Henningsson, Director General of the Swedish Institute in Alexandria; and Vigidis Moe Skarstein, Librarian at the Norwegian National Library.
The session discussed the need to develop the concepts related to freedom, availability, and circulation of information and the issue of patents, which force the inventor to disclose all information related to his/her invention, in return to copyrights. Speakers emphasized that the circulation of information is not only related to information availability somewhere, but requires facilitating access to this information.
The BA will continue to address the issues and questions raised about freedom of expression and access to knowledge in its future events.