freedom of association
The global infodemic accelerated in part by the COVID-19 pandemic has raised important debates on how best to respond to the proliferation of false and misleading information online.
As the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition, we express our outrage at the vicious attacks directed against Bondita Acharya, the northeast India regional coordinator of Human Rights Defenders Alert and a member of the Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression network.
Bytes for All, Pakistan has launched a new report that focuses on local and international advocacy initiatives to improve Pakistan’s compliance with international human rights law and practices in relation to freedom of assembly and of association online.
This report on the state of freedom of peaceful assembly and association online in Pakistan forms part of the baseline research conducted for the APC-IMPACT project, which aims to address restrictions on the internet by promoting and protecting internet rights in India, Malaysia and Pakistan.
On 18 November, Maria Chin Abdullah, chairperson of Bersih 2.0 (the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections), and Mandeep Singh, manager of Bersih’s secretariat, were arrested, and the offices of Bersih 2.0 were raided, on the eve of a major rally in the Malaysian capital.
This paper, produced as part of the APC project Advocacy for Change through Technology in India, Malaysia and Pakistan (APC-IMPACT), draws upon the work previously done by APC in providing guidance to the interpretation of the rights to freedom of association and assembly in the digital age.
APC is seeking an outreach and capacity building coordinator to join its policy to coordinate its internet rights networking and capacity-building work with women’s and human rights defenders in the Maghreb-Machrek region.
APC presents a Multimedia training kit on human rights and the internet, a set of modules concerned with the relationship between human rights, information and communications technologies (ICTs) and the internet. These modules can be used freely to help those who work on human rights and ICTs to understand how the internet is affecting the protection of rights.
Just months after the Internet Governance Forum, hundreds of people have demonstrated in Azerbaijan’s capital to express solidarity with recent protests in the central town of Ismayilli and denounce heavy police brutality. Some 40 participants were detained, including prominent blogger Emin Milli, investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova and human rights defenders.
At 10:26 UTC on November 29th, Syria’s international internet connectivity was shut down. APC strongly condemns this shut down, which threatens the safety and security of the Syrian people, and clearly violates international human rights law.

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