As part of the celebration of Dakar as 2007 Islamic Culture Capital for the African region, the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in coordination with the Senegalese Ministry of Culture and Classified Historical Heritage, held between 18 and 20 June, in Dakar, a regional expert meeting on ICT-related planning and lawmaking in the French-speaking African Member States. Taking part in the meeting were heads of legal departments in the ministries of communication, information and post in GuineaConakry, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, Niger and Senegal, in addition to ISESCO's representative Mr El Mahjoub Bensaid, information and communication programmes specialist at the Directorate of Culture and Information. The experts recommended the review of laws and legislations on information and communication technologies in the African countries, and proposed the incorporation of a course in this regard within the curricula of the computer specialist training institutes. They also called for the amendment of administrative, commercial and criminal laws in the Member States in order to rise to the challenges of electronic governance, cyber crime and e-commerce. In this connection, they emphasised the importance of the establishment in Africa of a network of legal experts specialized in information and communication to be supervised and coordinated by ISESCO in order to allow for the exchange of expertise and know-how within the framework of cooperation between the countries of the southern hemisphere. The Islamic Organization's experts recommended the organization of national sessions over the next two years (2008-2009) for the benefit of African jurists to help them improve their knowledge and technical capacities in the field of communication and information laws. In the same vein, they stressed the importance of involving experts specialized in communication and information laws in ISESCO's efforts to counter the media campaigns against Islam and Muslims by conducting studies and taking legal action against media professionals responsible for these campaigns which are at odds with the internationally accepted press ethics.
