New and emerging technologies have become a fundamental tool for human rights defenders to conduct their activities, boost solidarity among movements and reach different audiences. Unfortunately, these positive aspects have been overshadowed by negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights, including increased threats and risks for human rights defenders. While we see the increased negative impacts of new technologies, we do not see that governments are addressing these impacts comprehensively.
Furthermore, States and their law enforcement agencies (often through the help of non-State actors, including business enterprises) often take down or censor the information shared by defenders on social media and other platforms. In other cases, we have seen that businesses are also complicit in attacks and violations against human right defenders.
Conversely, lack of access to the internet and the digital gaps in many countries and regions, or affecting specific groups, limits the potential of digital technologies for activism and movement building, as well as access to information.
The Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted in 1998, does not consider these challenges, which have largely arisen with the rapid evolution of technology. In this context, and, as part of activities to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on human rights defenders, a coalition of NGOs launched a consultative initiative to identify the key issues faced by human rights defenders that are insufficiently addressed by the UN Declaration, including on the area of digital and new technologies. These issues are also reflected in the open letter to States on the draft resolution on human rights defenders that will be considered during HRC58.
This side event will be an opportunity to continue discussing the reality and the challenges that human rights defenders face in the context of new and emerging technologies. It will also be an opportunity to hear directly from those who, on a daily basis, work with defenders in the field of digital rights while highlighting their specific protection needs. Finally, the event will also help remind States about the range of obligations in this field that can contribute to inform the consultations on the HRC58 resolution on human rights defenders.
Panelists:
Opening remarks: Permanent Mission of Norway
Speakers:
Carla Vitoria – Association for Progressive Communications
Human rights defender from Kenya regarding the Safaricom case (via video message)
Woman human rights defender from Colombia regarding use of new technologies during peaceful protests
Human rights defender from Myanmar regarding online incitement to violence against Rohingya people
Video montage of civil society priorities for the human rights defender resolution at HRC58
Moderator: Ulises Quero, Programme Manager, Land, Environment and Business & Human Rights (ISHR)
This event is co-sponsored by Access Now, Asian Forum for Human Rights & Development (FORUM-ASIA), Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa HRD Project), Huridocs, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World), International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Peace Brigades International, Privacy International, Protection International, Regional Coalition of WHRDs in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRD MENA Coalition).
Mozilla is highlighting each year the work of 25 digital leaders using technology to amplify voices, effect change, and build new technologies globally through its Rise 25 Awards. On 13 May 2024 was the turn of Raphael Mimoun, a builder dedicated to making tools that empower journalists and human rights defenders. Aron Yohannes talked with Raphael about the launch of his app, Tella, combatting misinformation online, the future of social media platforms and more.
Raphael Mimoun: So I never worked in tech per se and only developed a passion for technology as I was working in human rights. It was really a time when, basically, the power of technology to support movements and to head movements around the world was kind of getting fully understood. You had the Arab Spring, you had Occupy Wall Street, you had all of these movements for social justice, for democracy, for human rights, that were very much kind of spread through technology, right? Technology played a very, very important role. But just after that, it was kind of like a hangover where we all realized, “OK, it’s not just all good and fine.” You also have the flip side, which is government spying on the citizens, identifying citizens through social media, through hacking, and so on and so forth — harassing them, repressing them online, but translating into offline violence, repression, and so on. And so I think that was the moment where I was like, “OK, there is something that needs to be done around technology,” specifically for those people who are on the front lines because if we just treat it as a tool — one of those neutral tools — we end up getting very vulnerable to violence, and it can be from the state, it can also be from online mobs, armed groups, all sort of things.
There’s so much misinformation out there now that it’s so much harder to tell the difference between what’s real and fake news. Twitter was such a reliable tool of information before, but that’s changed. Do you think that any of these other platforms can be able to help make up for so much of the misinformation that is out there?
I think we all feel the weight of that loss of losing Twitter. Twitter was always a large corporation, partially owned by a billionaire. It was never kind of a community tool, but there was still an ethos, right? Like a philosophy, or the values of the platform were still very much like community-oriented, right? It was that place for activists and human rights defenders and journalists and communities in general to voice their opinions. So I think that loss was very hard on all of us.
I see a lot of misinformation on Instagram as well. There is very little moderation there. It’s also all visual, so if you want traction, you’re going to try to put something that is very spectacular that is very eye catchy, and so I think that leads to even more misinformation.
I am pretty optimistic about some of the alternatives that have popped up since Twitter’s downfall. Mastodon actually blew up after Twitter, but it’s much older — I think it’s 10 years old by now. And there’s Bluesky. So I think those two are building up, and they offer spaces that are much more decentralized with much more autonomy and agency to users. You are more likely to be able to customize your feeds. You are more likely to have tools for your own safety online, right? All of those different things that I feel like you could never get on Threads, on Instagram or on Twitter, or anything like that. I’m hoping it’s actually going to be able to recreate the community that is very much what Twitter was. It’s never going to be exactly the same thing, but I’m hoping we will get there. And I think the fact that it is decentralized, open source and with very much a philosophy of agency and autonomy is going to lead us to a place where these social networks can’t actually be taken over by a power hungry billionaire.
What do you think is the biggest challenge that we face in the world this year on and offline, and then how do you think we can combat it?
I don’t know if that’s the biggest challenge, but one of the really big challenges that we’re seeing is how the digital is meeting real life and how people who are active online or on the phone on the computer are getting repressed for that work in real life. So we developed an app called Tella, which encrypts and hides files on your phone, right? So you take a photo or a video of a demonstration or police violence, or whatever it is, and then if the police tries to catch you and grab your phone to delete it, they won’t be able to find it, or at least it will be much more difficult to find it. Or it would be uploaded already. And things like that, I think is one of the big things that we’re seeing again. I don’t know if that the biggest challenge online at the moment, but one of the big things we’re seeing is just that it’s becoming completely normalized to grab someone’s phone or check someone’s computer at the airport, or at the border, in the street and go through it without any form of accountability. People have no idea what the regulations are, what the rules are, what’s allowed, what’s not allowed. And when they abuse those powers, is there any recourse? Most places in the world, at least, where we are working, there is definitely no recourse. And so I think that connection between thinking you’re just taking a photo for social media but actually the repercussion is so real because you’re going to have someone take your phone, and maybe they’re going to delete the photo, or maybe they’re going to detain you. Or maybe they’re going to beat you up — like all of those different things. I think this is one of the big challenges that we’re seeing at the moment, and something that isn’t traditionally thought of as an internet issue or an online digital rights issue because it’s someone taking a physical device and looking through it. It often gets overlooked, and then we don’t have much kind of advocacy around it, or anything like that.
What do you think is one action everybody can take to make the world and our lives online a little bit better?
I think social media has a lot of negative consequences for everyone’s mental health and many other things, but for people who are active and who want to be active, consider social networks that are open source, privacy-friendly and decentralized. Bluesky, the Fediverse —including Mastodon — are examples because I think it’s our responsibility to kind of build up a community there, so we can move away from those social media platforms that are owned by either billionaires or massive corporations, who only want to extract value from us and who spy on us and who censor us. And I feel like if everyone committed to being active on those social media platforms — one way of doing that is just having an account, and whatever you post on one, you just post on the other — I feel like that’s one thing that can make a big difference in the long run.
We started Rise25 to celebrate Mozilla’s 25th anniversary. What do you hope that people are celebrating in the next 25 years?
I was talking a little bit earlier about how we are building a culture that is more privacy-centric, like people are becoming aware, becoming wary about all these things happening to the data, the identity, and so on. And I do think we are at a turning point in terms of the technology that’s available to us, the practices and what we need as users to maintain our privacy and our security. I feel like in honestly not even 25, I think in 10 years, if things go well — which it’s hard to know in this field — and if we keep on building what we already are building, I can see how we will have an internet that is a lot more privacy-centric where communications are by default are private. Where end-to-end encryption is ubiquitous in our communication, in our emailing. Where social media isn’t extractive and people have actual ownership and agency in the social network networks they use. Where data mining is no longer a thing. I feel like overall, I can see how the infrastructure is now getting built, and that in 10,15 or 25 years, we will be in a place where we can use the internet without having to constantly watch over our shoulder to see if someone is spying on us or seeing who has access and all of those things.
Lastly, what gives you hope about the future of our world?
That people are not getting complacent and that it is always people who are standing up to fight back. We’re seeing it at. We saw it at Google with people standing up as part of No Tech for Apartheid coalition and people losing the jobs. We’re seeing it on university campuses around the country. We’re seeing it on the streets. People fight back. That’s where any change has ever come from: the bottom up. I think now, more than ever, people are willing to put something on the line to make sure that they defend their rights. So I think that really gives me hope.
Nikole Yanez is a computer scientist by training, and a human rights defender from Honduras. She is passionate about feminism, the impact of the internet and protecting activists. She was first drawn to human rights through her work as a reporter with a local community radio station. After surviving the coup d’état in Honduras in 2009, Nikole broadened her approach to focus her activism on technology. When she applied for the Digital Forensics Fellowship with the Amnesty Tech Security Lab in 2022, she was looking to learn more about cybersecurity and apply what she learnt with the organizations and collectives she works with regularly.
She highlighted her commitment to fostering a network of tech-savvy communities across Latin America in an interview with Elina Castillo, Amnesty Tech’s Advocacy and Policy Advisor:
I grew up in Honduras, where I lived through the coup d’état, which took place in 2009. It was a difficult time where rights were non-existent, and people were constantly afraid. I thought it was something you only read about in history books, but it was happening in front of my eyes. I felt myself just trying to survive, but as time went by it made me stronger and want to fight for justice. Despite the difficulties, people in my community remained hopeful and we created a community radio station, which broadcast stories about everyday people and their lives with the aim of informing people about their human rights. I was a reporter, developing stories about individual people and their fight for their rights. From there, I found a passion for working with technology and it inspired me to train to become a computer scientist.
I am always looking for ways to connect technology with activism, and specifically to support women and Indigenous people in their struggles. As much as technology presents risks for human rights defenders, it also offers opportunities for us to better protect ourselves and strengthen our movements. Technology can bring more visibility to our movements, and it can empower our work by allowing us to connect with other people and learn new strategies.
Is there one moment where you realized how to connect what you’ve been doing with feminism with technology?
In my work, my perspective as a feminist helps me centre the experiences and needs of marginalised people for trainings and outreach. It is important for me to publicly identify as an Afrofeminist in a society where there is impunity for gendered and racist violence that occurs every day. In Honduras we need to put our energy into supporting these communities whose rights are most violated, and whose stories are invisible.
For example, in 2006, I was working with a Union to install the Ubuntu operating system (an open-source operating system) on their computers. We realized that the unionists didn’t know how to use a computer, so we created a space for digital literacy and learning about how to use a computer at the same time. This became not just a teaching exercise, but an exercise for me to figure out how to connect these tools to what people are interested in. Something clicked for me in this moment, and this experience helped solidify my approach to working on technology and human rights.
There are not many women working in technology and human rights. I don’t want to be one of the only women, so my goal is to see more women colleagues working on technical issues. I want to make it possible for women to work in this field. I also want to motivate more women to create change within the intersection of technology and human rights. Using a feminist perspective and approach, we ask big questions about how we are doing the work, what our approach needs to be, and who we need to work with. Nikole Yanez Honduras Human Rights Defender
For me, building a feminist internet means building an internet for everyone. This means creating a space where we do not reproduce sexist violence, where we find a community that responds to the people, to the groups, and to the organizations that fight for human rights. This includes involving women and marginalised people in building the infrastructure, in the configuration of servers, and in the development of protocols for how we use all these tools.
In Honduras, there aren’t many people trained in digital forensics analysis, yet there are organizations that are always seeking me out to help check their phones. The fellowship helped me learn about forensic analysis on phones and computers and tied the learning to what I’m actually doing in my area with different organizations and women’s rights defenders. The fellowship was practical and rooted in the experience of civil society organizations.
How do you explain the importance of digital forensics? Well first, it’s incredibly relevant for women rights defenders. Everyone wants to know if their phone has been hacked. That’s the first thing they ask:, “Can you actually know whether your phone has been hacked?” and “How do I know? Can you do it for me? How?” Those are the things that come up in my trainings and conversations.
I like to help people to think about protection as a process, something ongoing, because we use technology all day long. There are organizations and people that take years to understand that. So, it’s not something that can be achieved in a single conversation. Sometimes a lot of things need to happen, including bad things, before people really take this topic seriously…
I try to use very basic tools when I’m doing digital security support, to say you can do this on whatever device you’re on, this is a prevention tool. It’s not just applying technical knowledge, it’s also a process of explaining, training, showing how this work is not just for hackers or people who know a lot about computers.
One of the challenges is to spread awareness about cybersecurity among Indigenous and grassroots organizations, which aren’t hyper-connected and don’t think that digital forensics work is relevant to them. Sometimes what we do is completely disconnected from their lives, and they ask us: “But what are you doing?” So, our job is to understand their questions and where they are coming from and ground our knowledge-sharing in what people are actually doing.
To someone reading this piece and saying, oh, this kind of resonates with me, where do I start, what would your recommendation be?
If you are a human rights defender, I would recommend that you share your knowledge with your collective. You can teach them the importance of knowing about them, practicing them, as well as encouraging training to prevent digital attacks, because, in the end, forensic analysis is a reaction to something that has happened.
We can take a lot of preventive measures to ensure the smallest possible impact. That’s the best way to start. And it’s crucial to stay informed, to keep reading, to stay up to date with the news and build community.
If there are girls or gender non-conforming people reading this who are interested in technical issues, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a degree or a formal education, as long as you like it. Most hackers I’ve met become hackers because they dive into a subject, they like it and they’re passionate about it.Nikole Yanez Honduras Human Rights Defender.
A bit belatedly, I refer to the statement made by Access Now welcoming on Tuesday, 8 June 2021, the timely new statement from U.N. Special Procedures emphasizing that digital rights are “a top priority” to rebuild civic space amid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The nine experts are taking part in RightsCon 2021 (June 7-11), marking the third consecutive year that Special Rapporteurs have issued a statement in light of thematic discussions to be held at the global summit on human rights in the digital age.
The experts pointed to recent instances of digital repression including non-transparent content takedowns and manipulation — as the world is witnessing in Palestine, India, and Colombia — and called upon businesses to uphold their responsibility to respect human rights. They stressed that “the opacity that prevails in the ways content is moderated by Governments and companies reinforces global perceptions of discrimination, inefficiency and censorship. There is an urgent need for transparency.”
“The diversity and scope of issues addressed within the mandates of the nine U.N. experts speaks to the heightened role of technology — and the need to center digital rights — in the pandemic recovery. We are thrilled to have such a robust presence of U.N. Special Rapporteurs and members of the Working Group on Business and Human Rights in this year’s RightsCon program,” said Peter Micek, U.N. Policy Manager at Access Now. “The statement decries patterns of abuse accelerating digital inequalities and discrimination against users most at risk, reminding states and the tech sector to undertake systemic efforts to reach those most affected.”
“We look forward to continuing to engage with the U.N. experts at RightsCon and beyond to address the intersection of technology within their mandates through a human rights-centered and intersectional lens,” said Laura O’Brien, U.N. Advocacy Officer at Access Now. “As we recover from the pandemic, we cannot understate the value of civil society engagement with U.N. experts.”
The experts warned particularly “against using the pandemic as an excuse to rush forward ‘digital transformation,’ as exemplified in digital vaccine certificates, without prioritising foundational digital rights safeguards” — a call that Access Now emphasizes.
The nine Special Procedures and their mandates include: Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Clément Voule, the right to peaceful assembly and association; Olivier De Schutter, extreme poverty and human rights; David R. Boyd, human rights and environment; Gerard Quinn, the rights of persons with disabilities; Tlaleng Mofokeng, the right to physical and mental health; Irene Khan, freedom of expression; Mary Lawlor, the situation of human rights defenders; and the Working Group on Business and Human Rights — Dante Pesce, Surya Deva, Elżbieta Karska, Githu Muigai, and Anita Ramasastry.
On 14 July Business-Wire reported that the VPN company TunnelBear has partnered with NGOs to give away 20,000 accounts (these NGOs inlcude Access Now, Frontline Defenders, Internews, and one other undisclosed participant).
This program aims to empower individuals and organizations with the tools they need to browse a safe and open internet environment, regardless of where they live. The VPN provider is encouraging other NGOs or media organizations across the world to reach out if they too are in need of support. “At TunnelBear, we strongly believe in an open and uncensored internet. Whenever we can use our technology to help people towards that end, we will,” said TunnelBear Cofounder Ryan Dochuk.
TunnelBear’s VPN encrypts its user’s internet traffic to enable a private and censor-free browsing experience.
“By undergoing and releasing independent audits of their systems, adopting open source tools, and collaborating with the open source community, TunnelBear has proven itself to be an industry leader in the VPN space and a valuable private sector partner within the internet freedom movement. Internews is happy to support TunnelBear in extending its VPN service to the media organizations, journalists, activists, and human rights defenders around the globe who can benefit from it,” said Jon Camfield, Director of Global Technology Strategy at Internews.
With her “Hack the patriarchy” laptop stickers, Nighat Dad is a digital warrior. But this human rights award winner and founder of Pakistan”s first cyber-harassment helpline still tears up as she describes receiving calls from women afraid of being killed by male relatives for using the internet. Nighat Dad established the help line in 2016 with prize money (100,000 euros) from the Dutch human rights award, the Tulip
Much of Pakistani society lives under the patriarchal, outdated code of so-called “honour” that systemises the oppression of women by preventing them from, for example, choosing their own husband or working outside the home. Activists have denounced pervasive, sometimes deadly violence by men — usually male relatives — against women who break those taboos. The situation is dire enough in the offline world.
But Pakistan is only just beginning to grapple with what violent notions of honour mean for women online, in a country where internet penetration is at 22 percent and growing, but digital literacy is low.
Much of the work the helpline does is to explain to women what recourse they have. Social media companies are playing ball, Dad says — some have even agreed to establish “escalation channels” for getting content off the internet quickly when a woman”s life is in immediate danger. But she warns that community guidelines developed by such companies, usually US-based, are not appropriate in Pakistan. “I think they need to do more,” Dad says. More than three years on, the Tulip money has run out. Now the helpline survives only by the grace of small grants from groups such as the Netherlands-based Digital Defenders Partnership, which supports rights activists.
…. She cites last year”s International Women”s Day march in Pakistan, which saw women turn out in unprecedented numbers loudly celebrating divorce and periods, among other things. The response was swift and shocking in its intensity, with Dad describing mullahs making rape and death threats against the march organisers in videos widely distributed online. The 2016 murder of social media star Qandeel Baloch has also impacted her, she says. Baloch divided Pakistan with her videos and selfies, tame by Western standards but provocative in Pakistan. She was strangled by her brother in 2016 in what has been called the country”s most high-profile “honour” killing.
“She was a hero for me… she did what she wanted to do, and not every woman can do this in Pakistan,” Dad says.
Dad says she cannot help but see the similarities between herself and Baloch. They are from similar backgrounds, both left abusive marriages, and both have gained fame by loudly challenging social taboos online — though admittedly not in quite the same way. Her murder “shook me badly,” she tells AFP. “It was enough to shake us all.”
Gabriel Ewepu in the Vanguard of 5 March 2020 reports that 95 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), under the auspices of Coalition of Civil Society Organizations for Protection of Civic Space, called on the Nigerian Senate to reject the Anti-Social Media Bill. This call was contained in a statement signed by leaders of the 95 during a media conference in Abuja. The statement reads in part:
David Gilbert in Vice.com of 24 January and Caitlin Harrington in the The Cascadia Advocate of 26 January 2020 (among others) address an important issue that could affect many human righs NGOs and thus human rights defenders. A private equity fund (backed by three prominent Republican billionaire families) is expected to buy the dot-org domain, throwing into question whether the online safe haven for rights organizations and nonprofits could now face censorship or spiralling costs. Ethos Capital has offered $1 billion for the domain, which is currently operated by a nonprofit.
[Back in the fall of 2019, the private equity firm Ethos Capital announced its plans to buy the Public Interest Registry (PIR) for more than $1 billion. PIR is owned by the Internet Society and manages the .ORG domain registry, which since 1985 has been used by nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI). Dot org is what is known as top layer domain… the last part of a uniform resource locator (URL), or web address. For example, nwprogressive.org. Dot-org is home to over 10 million URLs, making it the third-largest domain on the internet today. A huge variety of organizations use the domain ending, from massive multinational organizations like UNICEF to local libraries and animal shelters. PIR is a nonprofit entity that has been managing the registry and setting the prices that owners pay when they register .ORG domains.]
In a letter to the Internet Society from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an ally of NPI that opposes the sale, it was explained that this move could cause significant harm to nonprofits and NGOs. They argue that without oversight from an appropriate placement, the registry would have the power to make policy changes that would detrimental to .ORG stakeholders, including:
The power to raise .org registration fees without the approval of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or the .ORG community. A .ORG price hike would put many cash-strapped NGOs in the difficult position of either paying the increased fees or losing the legitimacy and brand recognition of a .ORG domain. [Yearly fees for .ORG sites are, on average, between $10 to $20.]
The power to develop and implement Rights Protection Mechanisms unilaterally, without consulting the .org community. If such mechanisms are not carefully crafted in collaboration with the NGO community, they risk censoring completely legal nonprofit activities.
The power to implement processes to suspend domain names based on accusations of “activity contrary to applicable law. ”The .ORG registry should not implement such processes without understanding how state actors frequently target NGOs with allegations of illegal activity.
NPI cosigned EFF’s letter, with NPI’s founder and Executive Director Andrew Villeneuve explaining: “The pending sale is of great concern to NPI because we own a significant number of .org domains. We could be affected by price hikes and bad policies imposed by the proposed new owner.”…….Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, was among those expressing grave concern and opposition at the time the sale was announced.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation also made the point in their letter opposing the sale, that back in 2002, amid similar talks of selling the .ORG registry, ISOC’s then president and CEO Lynn St. Amour assured the NGOs worldwide that the registry would continue to be accountable to the nonprofit sector.
Erik Brooks, founder and CEO of Ethos Capital, stated in a public blog post that the firm is investing in “the long-term vitality of .ORG and its users” and that “PIR’s partnership with Ethos will create new opportunities for PIR to provide enhanced services and support to the .ORG community.” He also promised that these enhanced services will be developed “in collaboration with the community.” But last month, ICANN published documents with the names of three directors of Ethos Capital involved in the sale redacted, which only deepened the concerns of nonprofits and NGOs.
….Tarleton argued the Washington Secretary of State’s office should be forcefully opposing the sale and calling attention to it. “This is the slippery slope of privatization that happens when no one is paying attention,” she warned.
….“We’re confident that this is in the best interests of the registry, in the best interests of the registrants, and in the best interest of the whole internet,” Andrew Sullivan, CEO of the Internet Society, a nonprofit that oversees the domain, told VICE News. But critics of the move say the promises made by Ethos Capital are not backed by any legal obligations. They also say there’s a problematic lack of transparency about the sale and who will be running the new organization overseeing the domain. So a group of respected internet pioneers and nonprofit leaders have come forward to offer an alternative proposition. But they don’t have $1 billion to offer.
Earlier this month, a group including former ICANN executives and internet pioneers called the Cooperative Corporation of .ORG Registrants filed incorporation papers in California. Their goal is to persuade ICANN to cancel the sale to Ethos and allow them to run dot-org instead. “Dot-org is the open internet’s most essential noncommercial infrastructure,” Esther Dyson, who served as the first chair of ICANN from 1998 to 2000 said in a blog post. “CCOR will ensure that dot-org will be kept free of commercial pressures, is mandated by law to uphold its public service purpose, and remains exceptionally well-positioned to advance the missions of the organizations it serves.” But ICANN has not responded publicly to the call.
This week the Internet Society and ICANN approved a 30-day extension to the process, giving both sides until 20 February to approve the sale. “This is by far the largest outpouring of public concern ICANN has ever seen,” Malthouse said. “It’s a huge opportunity for ICANN to prove it has the courage to stand behind its founding principles.”
Malaysian cartoonist Zunar helps launch a report by the International Commission of Jurists at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand. (Photo by Osama Motiwala/ICJ))
The ICJ has a slightly different take from other non-governmental organisations that seek to protect freedom of speech. For the ICJ, the law is both the problem and the solution: Southeast Asian governments use existing laws and draft new ones to stifle dissent, violating international statutes upholding freedom of expression that they themselves have signed onto. The report calls for governments in Southeast Asia to “repeal, amend or otherwise rectify existing legal and regulatory frameworks to bring them in line with their international obligations” — and argues that “legislation framed in human rights terms is also the best and most effective way to protect against the very real threats posed by the spread of hate speech, disinformation online, cyber-attacks and other cybercrimes.”
From left: ICJ director of Asia and the Pacific Frederick Rawski, Myanmar surgeon Ma Thida, human rights defender Sutharee Wannasiri, Singaporean activist Jolovan Wham and Malaysian cartoonist Zunar (Photo by Dave Kendall)
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Frederick Rawski, ICJ director of Asia and the Pacific told the forum. “Laws are used to harass and threaten human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists and others…New legal frameworks are being seen as an opportunity to consolidate and protect political power.” Corporations, too, have joined the party. “Businesses are using strategic lawsuits to avoid criticism, claiming they are protecting their businesses interests,” Sutharee Wannasiri told the audience. [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/05/04/international-civil-society-week-3-human-rights-defenders-engaging-business/]. The human rights activist is out on bail.
Governments have often cited vague concepts of “national security” and “public order” to justify using disproportionate means to shut down opposing views, sometimes even when privately expressed. “I was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 1993,” said Dr Ma Thida, a Myanmar surgeon, writer, and human rights activist. “The first charge was ‘endangering national serenity’.” She said the use of speech-suppressing colonial-era laws such as the National Secrets Act has actually increased since Aung San Suu Kyi joined the Myanmar government.
Governments across Southeast Asia vary in the subtlety — or otherwise — they employ in using the law to stifle dissent. “The police were very nice to me,” recalled Jolovan Wham, a Singaporean civil and labour rights activist [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/02/24/human-rights-defender-jolovan-wham-in-singapore-sentenced-ngos-dismayed/]. “They asked me, ‘Is the room too cold? Would you like some biscuits?’ Singapore introduced its Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act this year. “Singapore has a very good PR machine… they use democratic processes for authoritarian ends,” said Mr Wham. “They made a show of democratic consultation to justify this repressive law.”
The ICJ report was welcomed by Sutawan Chanprasert, the founder of DigitalReach, a new organisation campaigning to protect digital rights in Southeast Asia. “The report shows that while technology gives more opportunities for people to express themselves on social media, the state is moving to control the online space too,” she told the Bangkok Post. “Under repressive ‘fake news’ laws, any content can be interpreted as ‘fake’, ‘false’ and ‘misleading’. And tech has provided a new kind of threat to freedom of expression– digital surveillance of political dissidents.”
Objectives of AfriSIG. AfriSIG’s primary goal is to give Africans from multiple sectors and stakeholder groups the opportunity to gain knowledge that will enable them to participate confidently and effectively in national, regional and global internet governance processes and debates. AfriSIG seeks also to give fellows the opportunity to participate actively at the AfIGF as speakers, moderators, and rapporteurs. The dates and location of this year’s AfIGF are still to be confirmed.
Curriculum
The School will run throughout six days, and will be structured to include intensive learning and knowledge sharing that covers: An overview of internet governance concepts, issues and institutions; Internet architecture, infrastructure, standards and protocols and management of internet names and numbers; Internet governance and social issues: gender, human rights and development; Cybersecurity, multistakeholder approaches and emerging issues in internet governance such as algorithms and the “internet of things”; The highlight of the school is a practicum in which participants have to tackle an actual internet-related policy challenge and come up with an agreed solution or statement.
Eligibility
The School will accept applications from a wide range of professionals including human rights defenders and NGO leaders.
Costs and Scholarships
Applicants can apply for a scholarship to attend the school. However, given the limited number of scholarships, self-funded and sponsored applicants are encouraged to apply. The full course fee, which covers accommodation, meals, course material, and tuition, is USD 2,000. This excludes travel. Scholarships will cover air travel, shared accommodation and meal costs for the duration of the School. Successful applicants have the option of staying in a single room, but they would need to cover the additional cost themselves. The deadline for applications is Saturday, 1 June 2019.
Participants in an opposition rally in central Moscow protest against tightening state control over the internet in Russia, 10 March 2019 Igor Russak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
On 24 April 2019 nine major human rights, media and Internet freedom NGOs, called on Russian President Vladmir Putin, not to sign the so-called “Sovereign Internet Bill” as it will lead to further limitations of already restricted Internet and media freedoms in the country.
The bill (No. 608767-7) amends the laws “On Communications” and “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” and states its aim as enabling the Russian Internet to operate independently from the World Wide Web in the event of an emergency or foreign threat. On 16 April 2019, the Russian State Duma approved the bill in the third reading amid widespread domestic criticism, protests and online campaigning around the country, and on 22 April, the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, approved it. If signed by President Vladimir Putin, the bill would enter into force on 1 November 2019.
The bill creates a system that gives the authorities the capacity to block access to parts of the Internet in Russia, potentially ranging from cutting access to particular Internet Service Providers (ISPs) through to cutting all access to the Internet throughout Russia.
The bill gives control over Internet network routing to the state regulator for Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, Roskomnadzor. It provides that the ISPs should connect with other ISPs, or “peer,” at Internet exchange points (IXes) approved by the authorities, and that these IXes should not allow unapproved ISPs to peer. The bill would also create a centralised system of devices capable of blocking Internet traffic. The bill requires ISPs to install the devices, which the government would provide free of charge, in their networks.
Under this system, Roskomnadzor would monitor threats to Russia’s Internet access and transmit instructions to ISPs through the special devices about countering these threats. Cross-border Internet traffic would be kept under close state control. The draft does not specify what the range of instructions would be, but they could potentially include partially or fully blocking traffic both between Russia and the rest of the World Wide Web, and within Russia. Nor does the draft explain how the new equipment will work, or what specifically it will do. It is clear, however, that blocking would result from direct interaction between the government and the ISP and that it will be extrajudicial and nontransparent. The public would not know what has been blocked and why.
The bill states that the new measures will be activated in the event of a ‘security threat’. The draft does not define security threats, and instead gives the government full discretion to decide what would constitute a security threat and what range of measures would be activated using the new system to address a threat.
The bill also states that Russian ISPs remain obligated to filter and block content in accordance with existing Russian law.
Further, the bill creates a national domain name system (DNS) – a system that acts as the address-book for the Internet by allowing anyone to look up the address of the server(s) hosting the URL of a website they are looking for. The bill would require Internet providers to start using the national DNS from 1 January 2021. Forcing ISPs to use the national system will give Russian authorities the ability to manipulate the results provided to the ISP outside the ISP’s knowledge and control. Authorities will be able to answer any user’s request for a website address with either a fake address or no address at all. This not only allows them to conduct fine-grained censorship but will also let the national DNS to redirect users to government-controlled servers in response to any DNS requests instead of to a website’s authentic servers.
These proposals are very broad, overly vague, and vest in the government unlimited and opaque discretion to define threats. They carry serious risks to the security and safety of commercial and private users and undermine the rights to freedom of expression, access to information and media freedom.
The bill contravenes standards on freedom of expression and privacy protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), to which Russia is a party. Both treaties allow states to limit freedoms to protect national security but impose clear criteria for such limitations to be valid. The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, commenting on the ICCPR, has reiterated that these limits should be “provided by law, which is clear and accessible to everyone,” and be predictable and transparent.
Human Rights Watch, ARTICLE 19 and other undersigned organisations are extremely concerned that the changes introduced in the bill threaten human rights and freedoms in Russia. Open, secure and reliable connectivity is essential for human rights online, including the rights to freedom of expression, information, assembly, privacy and media freedom. The bill could pose a threat to the Internet’s rights-enabling features if access to the World Wide Web is wholly or partially cut off, or if arbitrary blocking and filtering of content is carried out. It would facilitate state surveillance and curb anonymity online. It also risks severely isolating people in Russia from the rest of the world, limiting access to information and constraining attempts at collective action and public protest. The Bill’s negative impact on the freedom of expression will also affect the rights of journalists and media to work freely.
The adoption of the bill should be seen in the context of other Russian legislation that severely undermines protection of freedom of expression and privacy online and fails to meet international human rights standards. These include:
. The 2016 ‘Yarovaya Law,’ which requires all communications providers and Internet operators to store metadata about their users’ communications activities, to disclose decryption keys at the security services’ request, and to use only encryption methods approved by the Russian government. It was adopted to allegedly counter ‘extremism’ but in practice, it creates a backdoor for Russia’s security agents to access Internet users’ data, traffic, and communications.
. In 2017, Federal Law 327-FZ made amendments to the ‘Lugovoi Law’ (Federal Law FZ-398, 2013) that gave the General Prosecutor or his/her deputies a right to block access to any online resource of a foreign or international NGOs designated ‘undesirable’; and, to ‘information providing methods to access’ the resources enumerated in the ‘Lugovoi Law’, i.e. including hyper-links to old announcements on public rallies not approved by local authorities.
. The recent March 2019 bills mandate blocking and penalizing websites that publish what authorities deem to be “fake news” and “insult” to authorities, state symbols, and what the legislation vaguely describes as Russian “society.”
The President of the Russian Federation should reject the bill. The Russian Government should also review other Internet related legislation, abolish the above listed laws and bring its legal framework to full compliance with international freedom of expression standards.
Igor Russak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 