Internet rights
APC welcomes the adoption by the Human Rights Council (HRC) of resolution A/HRC/32/L.20 reaffirming the importance of promoting and protecting human rights on the internet. The resolution, which was adopted by consensus, addresses some of the most pressing challenges to human rights online today. Since its landmark resolution in 2012 and follow-up resolution in 2014, the HRC has gone from recognising at a fundamental level the applicability of human rights in the online environment,...
“The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (…) promotes human rights standards and principles of openness in internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent,” the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, highlighted in his latest report to the Human Rights Council 32nd session. The African Declaration and the private sector in the digital age Kaye’s report focuses on the role of the...
Joint written statement submitted by the Association for Progressive Communications to the 32nd session of the Human Rights Council: State of Internet Rights in India, Malaysia and Pakistan With the increasing use of the internet for the exercise of freedom of expression and exchange of opinion globally, governments must fulfill their obligation to promote and protect human rights online. Howev...
The 32nd session of the Human Rights Council is taking place from 13 June to 1 July 2016 in Geneva. This session will be a significant one for internet rights, as the HRC will renew the bi-annual resolution on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the internet. First passed in 2012, the resolution affirmed that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected...
The landscape of internet governance has been rapidly evolving in the decade since the conclusion of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in 2005. The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society not only affirmed the commitment of all involved countries to develop a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society, but also proposed a multistakeholder a...
During the “Arab Spring” of 2011, the internet was a space for mobilisation. Since then, it has become a space for oppression of activism and dissent as well, with the governments of numerous countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, Maghreb-Machrek in Arabic) adopting or amending legislation to crack down on online speech, deploying censorship and surveillance tools in an attemp...
RightsCon is a mandatory meeting point for those interested in promoting the full exercise of human rights online, Valeria Betancourt, APC’s Communications and Information Policy Programme manager, said in regards to this annual event, which took place this year between 30 March and 1 April 2016 in San Francisco. “While the perspectives of the global South do not yet fully permeate discussi...
As part of the work to promote visibility of African internet rights, APC’s Leila Nachawati Rego has interviewed renowned Nigerian internet rights defender Gbenga Sesan. Read to know more about the African Declaration on Internet Rights, youth and the importance of regional work. http://africaninternetrights.org/updates/2016/04/article-654/
The WSIS+10 review process culminated in December 2015 with a renewed commitment to the WSIS vision as essential to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are in a new phase of the WSIS process and it is a unique opportunity to focus on the interaction between technology and the various aspects of development, recognising that technology alone cannot resolve development challen...
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