I was doing some research on Isabella of France and her son Edward III, the man who started the Hundred Years’ War, I was looking for pictures from period manuscripts and came upon a site that blocked Russian visitors. I accessed the site with VPN and discovered it had or had the insolence to put on UNESCO logo. Incensed, I wrote a complaint, here it is:
Dear Romain Parlier and others ,
The site World History https://www.worldhistory.org claims to be an educational site; it also claims UNESCO as its “featured partner” and uses UNESCO’s logo on its site.
I live in Russia, and I have been conducting some basic educational research. I discovered that World History blocks Russian users of all ages (World History’s site is accessible via VPN), as it blocks all Russian IPs. It does so in violation of UNESCO’s policies as it discriminates against people on the grounds of their ethnicity, nationality, ethnic origin, political views, and geographic location. There is no need for this discrimination, especially considering that Russia also pays its part of UNESCO’s expenses.
UNESCO is an agency of the UN. The UN affirms freedom of access to information and considers it a fundamental human right, enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The UN guarantees the right to “seek, receive and impart information” without restriction.
I urge you to take immediate action to ensure that World History provides equal access to its educational content for all users, regardless of their nationality or location, and to enforce UNESCO’s anti-discrimination principles in this case. Additionally, I request that the UN and UNESCO comprehensively address other similar cases of denied access to educational resources targeting Russians or those suspected to be Russian. This pandemic of discrimination is racial and ideological in motivation, and its scale is historically unprecedented and cannot be justified by anything.
Sincerely yours,