Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

Dutch MEP for D66, Marietje Schaake wrote a short but good piece in New Europe about the need for a overall EU strategy with regard to ‘digital freedom’. Concerning HRDs she has the following to say: “Generally speaking, the fight for control and power by authoritarian regimes involves a growing ICT component. While training human rights defenders, journalists and dissidents should improve their safety online it also creates a new set of sensitivities and a potentially dangerous dependency on the accuracy and quality of the guidance. Human rights defenders deserve EU support and in any case should not be targeted with tools and technologies developed and exported from within the EU.”

via The need for an EU Digital Freedom Strategy | New Europe.

This entry was posted on September 24, 2012 at 08:42 and is filed under EU, human rights, Human Rights Defenders.

Tags: EU, freedom of expression, Human Rights Defenders, information technology, IT, MEP, Schaake