A reception held by the group Open Net Initiative (ONI) was interrupted when United Nations officials demanded that an advertisement for a book titled "Access Controlled" be removed from display. The book details suppressed speech on the Web.
The reception was held at the UN-sponsored 2009 Internet Governance Forum in Egypt. According to a UN delegate witness, officials threw the poster on the floor, demanding its removal, which was resisted. Security then removed it over protest.
"We condemn this undemocratic act of censoring our event just because someone is trying to impress or be in the good graces of the Chinese government," said a spokesman for the Foundation for Media Alternatives, an affiliate of ONI.
