Freedom of expression
Shubha Kayastha interviewed research team including Sanchia Brown, Programme Officer at Women and Media Collective (WMC) Sri Lanka and Coordinator of EROTICS, Sri Lanka; Subha Wijesiriwardena, a writer and a blogger working on gender and sexuality project in WMC and also associated with Internews in a project which supports Freedom House which looks like strengthening local LGBTIQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) groups in Sri Lanka; and Paba Deshapriya who has been w...
This edition is an exploration of the multiple layers of the relationship between sexuality, rights and sexual expression and the internet. Does it open up new avenues and forums for expression, or does it expose people to more variations of the violence, abuse and harassment that we face onground/offline? And is this even a question to ask, since it is now inevitable that we are all embedded in technology, whether with or without our participation or consent. The internet has become an essen...
Freedom of expression and opinion online is increasingly criminalised with the aid of penal and internet-specific legislation. With this report, we hope to bring to light the problematic trends in the use of laws against freedom of expression in online spaces in Asia. In this special edition of GISWatch, APC brings together analysis on the criminalisation of online expression from six Asian st...
With the introduction of 3G and 4G technology in the last couple of years, access to the internet has become easier and Pakistan has seen a drastic increase in internet users over the past year. Pakistan currently stands 11th globally in terms of cellular subscribers. As of September 2017, cellular subscribers were around 140.76 million, which according to Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) stood...
The crackdown on the use of secure digital communications in many parts of the world is very concerning. Many governments, including those of Australia and the United Kingdom, are threatening to legislate backdoors for law enforcement in encryption standards, which would substantially weaken security for everyone while increasing the likelihood of damaging attacks from bad actors. Recently, Tur...
The right to privacy plays a critical role as an enabling right for the exercise and enjoyment of other rights, as well as for the free development of an individual’s personality and identity. It also protects and enhances an individual’s ability to participate in political, economic, social and cultural life. It is to be noted with concern that any violations or abuses of the right to priv...
The submission was prepared after consultations and closed group meetings with civil society organisations (CSOs), media and academia in Pakistan. Around 30 individuals from these stakeholder groups attended the meetings. An extensive monitoring and desk review was also part of the methodology. The status of accepted recommendations by the state during the first and second cycles of the UPR was...
The increased digital access in human lives has facilitated work and appended additional spaces to the existing ones. Knowledge is no longer inaccessible or confined to books; rather, it has been taken to virtual spaces. Pakistan is relatively a new to this advancement, yet there has been a meticulous debate in progress to regulate these spaces and counter the crimes facilitated by the internet...
Over 80 people engaged in wildly different kinds of feminist activism across the world gathered together to discuss what does it mean to build movements around feminist principles, women’s rights, sexuality and related issues in the digital age. From the cataclysmic and profoundly loud speaking out that took place spontaneously across varied contexts with #metoo to understanding, owning and b...
Código Sur is made up of people belonging to different social movements that are seeking to develop and socialise communications. They believe in a new model of knowledge production and cultural construction that implies resisting processes of privatisation of life, knowledge, communications and culture. They offer services with free/libre and secure technologies for organisations, movements a...
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2018
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