Freedom of expression
APC welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, in particular its recognition of gendered disinformation online and the recommendation to states and companies to confront it, as well as to give special attention to its consequences in the offline world.
Karisma, FLIP, ILEX, CEJIL, IFEX, Derechos Digitales and APC urge the Human Rights Council to call on the Colombian state to guarantee, respect and protect the exercise of human rights online and offline in the country.
How are APC members improving their communities' lives? In Pakistan, Media Matters for Democracy has been working on media building, fighting censorship and defending women journalists in an increasingly regressive context.
In this response to the call by the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression for contributions to the thematic report to be presented to the 76th session of the UN General Assembly, APC addresses the issue of gender justice and its intersection with these rights from a feminist lens.
This statement was submitted ahead of the Human Rights Council 47th session to express grave concern over digital rights violations against Palestinians during the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, Palestinians in mixed cities in Israel and forcible displacement of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
APC joins with other civil society organisations to denounce the escalating situation of digital authoritarianism in India, including the efforts to intimidate web platforms into compliance with the government's censorship measures.
APC joins in the condemnation of the suspension of Twitter services in Nigeria, and considers that this measure not only limits Nigerian citizens' exercise of their right to access information, but also other rights including freedom of expression, privacy, and freedom of assembly and association.
APC sees RightsCon as a convening space for strategising and networking, as well as an opportunity to showcase APC’s work and perspectives on human rights in the digital space, a feminist internet, access and digital inclusion, social justice and environmental sustainability.
When looking through the risk and danger that seemingly small decisions about online social media profiles can pose to queer-identifying individuals, the utopic narrative of the “levelling field” that the internet creates begins to fall apart.
The undersigned human rights and digital rights organisations urge Google to immediately halt its plan to establish a new Google Cloud region in Saudi Arabia until the company can publicly demonstrate how it will mitigate adverse human rights impacts.

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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