Yesterday, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Media for the Government of Zambia, Mr. Thabo Kawana, typed a brief note canceling the long-planned RightsCon, which was starting in just under 5 days. Over 5000 people who relied on the words and commitments of the Zambian government were left stranded, scrambling to make sense of such a sudden, senseless change of events.
Mr. Kawana’s explanation rings hollow to all who read it, so much so that it is worth repeating here: “The postponement was necessitated by the need for comprehensive disclosure of critical information relating to key thematic issues proposed for discussion during the Summit.” The program for RightsCon had been posted for weeks. The subjects are predictable for the world’s premier human rights technology conference: they pertain to human rights and technology. There is no ambiguity in the programming that would support a “need for comprehensive disclosure.”
So what is really behind this? While there is considerable speculation, only Mr. Kawana and his peers know for sure.
In doing this, Zambia perpetuated a stereotype. Not of Africa, but of an imbalance in the power structures at the heart of all human rights work. In reading Mr. Kawana’s note, the consensus is not that Zambia made this decision on their own, but that they were asked, or told, to take this step. The prevailing belief is that they were pressured by a larger nation.
During this RightsCon, eQualitie was scheduled to host the first African edition of SplinterCon – the world’s preeminent conference on network fragmentation. The subject of our event this year, which will still take place online May 5th, is digital colonialism. It will address a trend of technical dependency by the Global South, and the increasing exportation of tools for network control that erode the power of civil society and democracy within these countries.
There could be no more fitting an example of the risks we seek to unpack than this cancellation. To say no to 5,000 people from 150 countries, coming to your city to champion the rights of countries like Zambia, of a Global South that is often left out of these very conversations about digital sovereignty and resilience, is a clear bending of the knee.
RightsCon exists to support the less powerful in organizing, collaborating, and building common cause across borders and across continents. It exists because the communities most affected by censorship, surveillance, and repression rarely control the systems that shape them, but are often beholden to them.
This is not a proud moment for the government of Zambia. At a time when strength and courage are hard to come by, closing the door on 5000 human rights practitioners, technologists, policymakers, and activists, many of them risking their own lives and livelihoods to stand up for the rights of others, is a loss for everyone.
We believe the human-rights dialogue and the role that technology plays in all our lives is the critical conversation of our time. More than ever, we need spaces to convene, room to discuss, and mechanisms to share our stories. Cancelling RightsCon is not simply shutting the doors on a conference; it is silencing one of the few global, collective attempts at building a more just and open society.
eQualitie strongly condemns this decision.