freedom of assembly and association

The Association for Progressive Communications has started a project called Connect Your Rights! in early 2011. Meant to make the links between fundamental human rights offline and online, it published an infographic in mid-2012 to offer a visualization of the impact that the internet provokes on the human rights regime. After a successful first run in social media and at events worldwide, the ...

This special edition of Global Information Society Watch 2011, “Internet rights and democratisation: focus on freedom of expression and association online” features updates from six countries on the state of internet rights and an introduction from the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Jillian York.

Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011, government has shown much desire to regulate the internet. The uprising in the Guba district in March 2012 has shown the pivotal role that social media can play in Azerbaijani political life, Vugar Gojayev told APCNews, in an interview for the forthcoming Global Information Society Watch report.

Five years back, I took the highway to Grahamstown, South Africa. I had landed in Port Elizabeth before being picked up by a Rhodes University shuttle bus. This year, Highway Africa is taking place at Rhodes in Grahamstown for the 16th time and looking at the media’s coverage of Africa’s rising.

Human rights play out differently on the streets than on the internet. This has been true for years, but today in age, not only are ‘internet rights’ are being promoted — they are also being violated at an astounding speed. David Souter has investigated the internet’s impacts on human rights. Also check out our infographic of his comprehensive research.

APCNews has interviewed Rebecca Vincent, a human rights consultant who is currently working with ARTICLE 19 to coordinate the International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan, a coalition of international organisations working to promote and protect freedom of expression in Azerbaijan. Here’s her take on the human rights situation on Azerbaijan’s net.

Demonstrations in the middle-east and student protests in Chile or Quebec have shown that the internet can augment the capacity of citizens to form associations and organise protests. Campaigning through websites, microblogging and other uses of technology help increase the membership and reach of associations, provide powerful ways to organise peaceful assemblies online and on the streets. Thi...

Campaigning through websites, microblogging and other uses of technology help increase the membership and reach of associations and provide powerful ways to organise peaceful assemblies. This issue paper by Alex Comninos sheds a new light on how the internet impacts the exercise of the right to freedom of association and freedom of assembly.