Human rights
Many countries today are turning to digital technologies to provide information as well as for monitoring and controlling people infected with the virus, which alerts us to the potential impact of these technologies on people’s fundamental rights.
In the last two weeks of March 2020, the government issued several directives to Myanmar telecom operators ordering them to block at least 221 websites. We believe that the government’s order to block these websites lacks an adequate legal basis and is in violation of international human rights law.
Over 100 organisations from around the world signed a joint statement stressing that digital surveillance to fight COVID-19 can only be justified if it respects human rights, and setting out conditions that must be met before the use of surveillance technology to fight the pandemic.
7amleh concluded the online version of the Palestine Forum for Digital Activism 2020 with the participation of a quarter million Palestinians, Arabs and internationals. The conference was adapted from an offline event with 1,000 participants to an online event in two weeks.
This edition of GenderIT gathers a series of reflections inspired by the first Making a Feminist Internet in Africa regional convening. Feminists from eighteen African countries came together to discuss what the internet means for their lives and centre the voices of African women.
The extent to which African countries are conducting technology-based disease surveillance is not fully known. While well intentioned, Covid-19 surveillance and data-based tracking interventions have been effected in haste, and with limited precedent and oversight mechanisms.
The Lebanese government announced on 12 March that Ogero, the national internet service provider (ISP), will double the speed and capacity for users until the end of April, but it did not clarify whether the decision includes other privately owned ISPs.
COVID-19 is revealing the extent of the digital divide in Pakistan, and it has resulted in Pakistanis mobilizing on Twitter to demand affordable and accessible Internet services.
APC welcomes the invitation of the Special Rapporteur to reflect on the mandate and to provide its inputs regarding growing challenges for the exercise of these rights offline and online.
7amleh – The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media warns of Israel committing mass violations of digital rights, especially the right to privacy, under the pretext of managing the health crisis caused by the coronavirus.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
Unless otherwise stated, content on the APC website is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)