For its ninth edition, RightsCon 2020 will take place entirely online from Monday, July 27 to Friday, July 31, 2020. This annual gathering centers around the ever-changing role of technology in the fight for human rights.
SAFEnet, as regional organization who focused on defending digital rights in Southeast Asia countries, will attend and participate in agenda of sharing experience of internet shutdown in Indonesia together with Keep It On coalition and AccessNow. And also participating in discussion over national security versus democracy in Southeast Asia countries held by Manushya Foundation and PEN International.
The first agenda, we will discuss about internet shutdowns are on the rise globally. Shutdowns are intended to disrupt the ability to communicate information and expose violations in real-time. They often occur during protests, elections, and periods of political instability, and are often accompanied by heightened state repression, military offensives, and violence.
The session seeks to look at the various shutdowns from 2019 till date and oversee the impact of internet shutdowns on a wide spectrum of human rights and freedoms. The recent rulings by the ECOWAS court regarding the 2017 internet shutdowns and the Jakarta District Court on the 2019 internet shutdowns in Papua and West Papua have set precedent globally.
The \’State of Internet Shutdowns 2020\’ discussion taken place on July 27, 2020 at 10.15 pm (Jakarta time) held by AccessNow and the #KeepItOn Coalition.
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In the session, Damar Juniarto as SAFEnet Executive Director, will sit together with other members of Keep It On coalition:
- Yohannes Ayalew, PhD Student, Monash University, Australia, – Ethiopia
- Khattab Abdalkareem Hassan Hamad, Telecom Engineer and digital rights activist – Sudan
- Radhika Jhalani, Volunteer Counsel @ SFLC.in
- Yin Yadanar Thein, Executive Director, Free Expression Myanmar
Another agenda, SAFEnet will participate in the sharing session \’Will democracy survive ‘national security’ in the digital space of Southeast Asia?\’ taking place on Friday 31st July 2020, from 5.00 PM to 6.00 PM Jakarta time, hosted by Manushya Foundation and PEN International.
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On this session, the sharing session will focus on how civic space in Southeast Asia is being threatened by governments misusing \’national security\’ to pass anti-democratic laws and restrict our online freedom while pressuring tech companies to assist them in online surveillance. This session also will highlight the legal challenges using cases from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam; and will also share solutions to address the rise of digital dictatorship in ASEAN with strategies to fight back violations of online freedom, online privacy, and access to information.
See you there!
