[NCUC-EC] Statement on the recent EC action

[Mueller, Milton L]

Dear NCSG members:

I want to address the conflict that took place on the list yesterday. I understand that the NCSG EC has acted promptly to remove the offending party from our list. This happened without my request or participation; I did not even know it was happening until I saw these messages today. But I agree with the action. And I want to clarify my own position.

In the past two days this person sent about 20 messages to the list. He began by attacking the integrity of our election process, and ended with incredible levels of name-calling, threats and lies. He then started targeting me on twitter, claiming that I was a "racist." I am at a loss to find anything racial in my messages to him, or anywhere. I live in a majority-black city and have colleagues and close friends of many different races. My wife is nonwhite. His constant repeating of that charge shows that he is deliberately publicizing a lie in order to gain undeserved sympathy or to attempt revenge. He has the gall to invoke "Black Lives Matter" in his tweets, as if he knew or cared anything about the treatment of African-Americans by police in this country. I am frankly disgusted by people who try to exploit racial tensions in this way, especially at this time.

If one looks into this person's background one has to question why he was here in the first place. He runs a commercial marketing company in India. His label on his emails openly tout his status as a commercial CEO. In response to Carlos Afonso he claimed to run nonprofits but he didn't name them. His LinkedIn page does not mention any nonprofits. We find that he is also a functionary for India's BJP party, which promotes citizenship policies that discriminate against Muslims<https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/04/10/shoot-traitors/discrimination-against-muslims-under-indias-new-citizenship-policy>. He has been called out for insulting women<https://archive.siasat.com/news/bjp-member-vaibhav-outrageously-ridicules-female-journalist-national-tv-1364183/> in political debate.

In sum, while I do accept responsibility for triggering the conflict I have to stand by my original message, which challenged his repetitive and barely comprehensible attacks on our process in a way that was not constructive. While the ensuing conflict was unpleasant, we are better off that this person's character was revealed and he was shown the door. It is clear that we were dealing with a bully who was not here to help support NCSG in ICANN.

I thank the EC for quick action and apologize for the distraction during our election process.

Dr. Milton L Mueller


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