After spending months discussing a serious unresolved problem with my broadband service provider (NET)  and have been summarily ignored by the company, I decided to place a formal complain at ANATEL (the agency that regulate all telecommunications services in Brazil),  as I did in the past.

On ANATEL’s website, I discovered that their complaints system was updated and when I tried to register myself at the new system, found that the site doesn’t work on Linux.

I tested the same thing on a different machine and spoke with several friends who faced the same problem, a gigantic absurdity.

I can’t understand why we still have people that don’t understand that access to public services WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION is a Human Right! It is not acceptable that a Linux user is required to purchase a Windows license to communicate with the government and it’s even less acceptable on a government that is doing too much to adopt Open Standards, and that already have most of its websites running on Open Standards.

Inspired by my South African friend, Aslam Raffee that faced a similar issue in his country,  I sent a few hours ago the following complaint to the National Commission for Human Rights and Citizenship:

“Gentlemen,

I’m having problems with my broadband service provider and after months in contact with them trying to solve the issues, I hadn’t any success. I decided to present a formal complaint at ANATEL, as I did last year.

Entering ANATEL’s website, I realize that the registration feature of the complaints system was changed and I cannot make my registration in the new system using the internet browser (browser) Firefox on Linux operating system (tried on two different computers with different versions of Firefox and Linux and doesn’t work).

In recent days, spoke with some friends and discovered that I am not the only one who is suffering from this problem and I could check that the register on the site only works correctly on Windows operating system.

I do not have the Windows operating system installed on my computer and do not want to buy a Windows license to access a public service.

Therefore, I am unable to access a service (opening formal complaints through the Internet) and therefore I feel discriminated by ANATEL. I understand that there are other ways to get the service, i.e. through telephone contact, but if the electronic service is an option available to any citizen, I cannot suffer such discrimination.

This is a violation of Articles 2, 7 and 21.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I ask to this committee to investigate this violation and notify the responsibles.

Thousands of other users in Brazil are going through the same problem and most of them are not aware that the non-discriminatory and equal access to public services through the Internet is, above everything, a Human Right.

I am available for any necessary clarification. “

I hope that this will result in something positive, and I invite everyone who face similar problems to send a similar appeal or complain to your countries Human Rights Commissions, based on the same articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights I used.

I thank the friends from Digistan, for openning my eyes about the relationship between Open Standards and Human Rights and Aslam Raffee to give me the example.

I intend to keep you all informed if I receive any feedback from the committee.

I ask everyone to help divulging this initiative: We must fight for our rights!