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https://www.404media.co/china-pressure-canceled-worlds-largest-digital-human-rights-conference/>
"The Chinese government pressured Zambia to cancel RightsCon, the world’s
largest digital human rights conference, at the last minute, according to the
conference’s organizers. Beijing was upset that the speaker’s list included
prominent figures from Taiwanese civil society, AccessNow, the group that
organizes RightsCon, wrote Friday.
On Wednesday, guests and speakers from across the planet headed to Zambia to
attend RightsCon, the largest digital human rights conference in the world.
Zambian immigration officials turned away early arrivals, saying the conference
had been cancelled. The African country’s government posted a vague message on
Facebook saying the conference had been postponed. By the end of the day, event
organizers Access Now officially cancelled the conference and told participants
not to go to Africa.
RightsCon is a large conference that takes years to plan and hosts thousands of
people. It requires a high level of coordination between Access Now and the
host country and it’s odd to cancel something this logistically complicated
five days before it begins. On Friday, Access Now revealed details about what
happened in a blog post.
WIRED earlier reported on the Chinese pressure."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
