freedom of assembly and association
This submission was developed in response to the call for input from the UN Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, for a thematic report addressing the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
Last year the highest number of internet shutdowns were recorded in the world, and we must equip defenders with strategies to bypass such blocking. APC has developed a game-based training to help understand internet infrastructure, shutdown procedures and circumvention tools.
Last year saw the highest number of internet shutdowns ever recorded. Such enforced digital darkness is a slippery slope of easy authoritarianism that we see spreading globally, one that countries like India, with the world's highest number of shutdowns, are using to gain undemocratic compliance from their citizens.
The Association for Progressive Communications is outraged by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran as well as deeply alarmed by the ensuing violent crackdown on protests, violations of women’s rights, and widespread internet shutdowns across the country.
In Iran, women are protesting to demand bodily autonomy and their right to live, in the wake of the state-backed murder of a 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the morality police. The government is responding by killing more women, attacking protestors and censoring the internet to contain the information.
The undersigned organisations and activists firmly reject the violent repression, arbitrary arrests and use of surveillance technologies to intimidate, harass, persecute and silence defenders of human rights and nature in Ecuador in the context of the protests that started on 13 June 2022.
We want people, especially those facing discrimination and oppression, to have greater power and autonomy through digital technologies to exercise their full range of human rights online and offline. Check out our achievements in this area in 2020.
In recognition of the 250 organisations in the #KeepItOn Coalition against internet shutdowns, we urge all states to immediately and unconditionally cease shutting down, throttling, or blocking the internet.
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.
We firmly reject the violent repression in Colombia in response to the massive protests which began on 28 April. The Colombian state has the obligation to adopt the necessary measures to guarantee freedom of assembly and association and freedom of speech, on the internet and on the streets.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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