Author: Flavia Fascendini

Increased understanding of censorship and criminalisation of political, religious and sexual expression in Asia

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

APC’s research, advocacy and capacity-building work contributed to increased understanding among civil society, human rights defenders and development practitioners of the threat of censorship and criminalisation of political, religious and sexual expression in Asia.

This increased capacity was a result of two joint submissions at the Human Rights Council 2017 sessions, and several publications produced as part of the Advocacy for Change through Technology in India, Malaysia and Pakistan (IMPACT) project, implemented in partnership with the Digital Empowerment Foundation from India, EMPOWER from Malaysia and Bytes for All, Pakistan. The research produced through the IMPACT project provided evidence and analysis of trends in Asia.

One of the main outputs was APC’s regional mapping of laws impacting the internet, titled “Unshackling Expression”, which was released as a special edition of Global Information Society Watch, and covers laws in six countries: India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.

Another relevant publication, APC’s regional research paper on freedom of expression in the context of religion online, “Let the mob do the job: How proponents of hatred are threatening freedom of expression and religion online in Asia”, expands the scope of the analysis on hate speech to suggest a multi-layered analysis that considers political, economic and social structures, the impact of inequalities in societies and individual agency.

APC and our IMPACT project partners also published country research papers on the state of freedom of expression, freedom of information, and freedom of assembly and association online in India, Malaysia and Pakistan.

To broaden advocacy in Asia, APC, Global Partners Digital, FORUM-ASIA and Bytes for All Pakistan brought together 50 civil society groups from across the region for a two-and-a-half-day gathering in October in Bangkok, Thailand. They were joined by David Kaye, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, who, in his keynote address, outlined some of the main intersections that characterise the digital and human rights landscapes. Participants also had the opportunity to share their views and input first hand into Kaye’s 2018 annual report to the UN Human Rights Council, which will be focused on content regulation.

To watch out for: APC will develop further capacity-building spaces for NHRIs in Asia. And look out for the illustrated summary of the report on online content regulation by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression that APC will produce.

Image: David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion during the State of the Internet event in Bangkok. Source: Twitter.

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Point of View’s Skin Stories: Essays on sexuality, disability and gender

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

In August 2017, Point of View launched the publication Skin Stories, which is a weekly essay series of narratives on sexuality, disability and gender. The origins of the publication lie in a nameless blog on Point of View’s website sexualityanddisability.org, which only had one writer for a long time, and then two. But over time, the site was able to reach more and more people who lived with either disability or chronic illness, and who wanted to write for it.

The community of writers grew slowly and steadily, and it became clear that there was a need to create a platform that would do justice to their powerful voices, and help them reach the wide audiences they deserve. And so Skin Stories was given its name, its launch, and its current home: pages on Medium and WordPress that are updated every Tuesday. Together, the essays, articles, reports and illustrations not only reaffirm the premise of Point of View’s Sexuality and Disability programme – that people with disabilities are sexual beings, just like anyone else – but also give readers the gift of fresh, urgent, intersectional perspectives by voices they may not otherwise have access to.

Image: Upasana Agarwal for the story “I’m a Dalit woman, and my mental health matters.” 

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A newly elected Board of Directors for the period 2017-2019

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

On 21 August 2017, 39 APC Council members cast their votes during the APC Member Meeting in Ithala, South Africa, and elected a new Board of Directors for the next three years. The composition of APC’s new Board of Directors is the following: Bishakha Datta, Point of View, India (chair); Leandro Navarro, Associació Pangea – Coordinadora Comunicació per a la Cooperació, Catalonia (vice-chair); Liz Probert, GreenNet, United Kingdom (secretary); Sylvie Siyam, PROTEGE QV, Cameroon (treasurer); Michel Lambert, Alternatives, Canada; Julián Casabuenas G., Colnodo, Colombia; Osama Manzar, Digital Empowerment Foundation, India; and Chat Garcia Ramilo, APC, Philippines (executive director).

APC is proud to have a board with gender balance and representatives from all regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America). A balance was also achieved in terms of continuity, with three board members from the previous board retaining their positions (Julián Casasbuenas G., Liz Probert and Osama Manzar). The new board brings together wisdom, experience, freshness and enthusiasm to steer APC through the new phase that lies ahead.

The APC Board of Directors for the previous period (2014-2017) was comprised of: Julián Casabuenas G., Colnodo, Colombia (chair); Valentina Pellizzer, One World Platform, Bosnia and Herzegovina (vice-chair); Liz Probert, GreenNet, United Kingdom (secretary); Osama Manzar, Digital Empowerment Foundation, India (treasurer); Anriette Esterhuysen, South Africa (executive director until April 2017); Chat Garcia Ramilo, Philippines (executive director after April 2017); Chim Manavy, Open Institute, Cambodia; John Dada, Fantsuam Foundation, Nigeria; and Lillian Nalwoga, CIPESA, Uganda. APC thanks the outgoing board members and acknowledges their efforts and excellent contributions towards strengthening the network during their tenure. You can learn more about the roles and responsibilities of APC’s Board and find out more about APC governance.

Image: Members of APC’s new Board of Directors, from left to right: Osama Manzar, Julián Casabuenas G., Liz Probert, Sylvie Siyam, Michel Lambert, Bishakha Datta, Chat Garcia Ramilo and Leandro Navarro.

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From imagining to making a feminist internet

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

The Making a Feminist Internet: Movement Building in a Digital Age meeting was held in October 2017 and hosted 84 participants from around the world, primarily from the global South, concerned with issues related to internet rights, women’s rights, sexual rights and digital security.

This first-of-its-kind event – co-organised by APC and movement-based funds and organisations: AWID, Astraea, CREA, the FRIDA Young Women’s Fund, Mama Cash and the Urgent Action Fund – brought together multiple actors to discuss feminist movement building in the digital age, with a specific track addressing digital safety and security issues. This third feminist internet meeting represented a turning point on how technology is understood among women’s rights and sexual rights funders and feminist networks.

One of the premises of the event was the need to build the future with a strong memory of the individual and collective past, acknowledging that movement building happens in a continuum in the digital age, with a central focus on the discourse on technology in relation to infrastructure, safety, participation, governance and decision-making, expression and violence.

A special GenderIT.org edition was launched in November 2017 and captured the main thoughts emerging after the prolific gathering: how to grapple with the new questions to be asked about accountability, movements, ethics, self-care, organising and expression, and to pin down the role of remembering and archiving, of telling, finding and constructing the herstory.

This convening represented the synthesis of a full year of focused advocacy and relentless strategic engagement through capacity building and evidence building with the feminist, women’s rights and sexual rights funders community, leading global organisations and networks, and very localised work with APC members and partners.

To watch out for: APC’s movement building towards a feminist internet will continue, with a fourth gathering of feminists in 2018.

Image: Participants arranging elements in the Museum of Moments installation, as captured by Fungai Machirori.

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Rhizomatica and AlterMundi train indigenous communicators in Mexico

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

Between October 2016 and May 2017, the first edition of the Diploma Course for Community Promoters in Telecommunications and Broadcasting was held in Mexico. Two member organisations of APC collaborated in this process: Rhizomatica, who taught the community cellular networks module, and AlterMundi, who led the module on wireless internet networks. The coordination for the diploma course was conducted by Redes por la Diversidad, Equidad y Sustentabilidad A.C. and Palabra Radio.

Overall, the project involved 17 Mexican organisations that have been collaborating since 2012 in a participatory research process to understand the concepts that should be reinforced for indigenous communicators. Based on the results of this research, the need to coordinate efforts in the technical training of organisations working with community and indigenous media was detected.

The course consisted of eight modules that included topics around community communication and technology, electricity, electronics, free/libre software, broadcasting, community cellular networks, wireless internet networks, legal frameworks and sustainability. The course was attended by community communication organisations from six Mexican states, and a total of 36 participants. The knowledge that was socialised during the diploma course was accompanied by the provision of tools and equipment to the participants through four new regional technological laboratories.

Image source: Techio Comunitario.

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Building and supporting community cellular networks in Brazil and Colombia

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

Thanks to support through an APC subgrant, Rhizomatica was able to support a number of emerging initiatives in Brazil and Colombia regarding community cellular networks. These are basically community-based networks that use 2G cellular technology as a way to facilitate communication between people.

The project took Rhizomatica to both countries in the final part of 2017. In Brazil they worked with Rede Mocambos and local authorities and community members in the Kalungas quilombola community to put up a small, local GSM network. They then travelled up north to Pará state to work with the Lasse project at the Federal University of Pará in Belem. Together they installed two new networks. Since GSM frequencies are heavily regulated, the networks did not go live until early 2018, when the Brazilian regulatory authority approved the experimental licences.

After Brazil they travelled to Colombia to work with another APC member, Colnodo, and the University of Cauca, on the implementation of a community cellular network in the Cauca region, with indigenous, Afro-descendant and campesino populations. The network has been installed, but once again the licensing issue remains unresolved, although it seems that things will be worked out by mid-2018.

Image source: Rhizomatica.

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WOUGNET highlights the importance of the Feminist Principles of the Internet to achieve women’s rights online in Uganda

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

On 26 October 2017, WOUGNET held a national, local-level conversation on the Feminist Principles of the Internet (FPIs) under a project funded by the UN Women Fund for Gender Equality, combined with a capacity-building activity funded under our Women’s Rights Online project, seeing as both sought to target policy makers by highlighting the need for an inclusive internet. The activity was intended as an opportunity to discuss information and communications technology (ICT) policy recommendations and policy gaps, and draw on case study narratives as orientations for discussion. It included components of the status of internet governance in Uganda while highlighting the implications of policy gaps on women’s online rights and digital empowerment.

The Feminist Principles of the Internet are an ongoing discussion and debate on proposed principles designed to guide legal frameworks of the ICT sector while pushing to incorporate a strong component of gender equality and a human rights approach. The recommendations in the 2015 report on Women’s Rights Online and the five-point action plan also share the same goal, with strong emphasis on internet access for all and the need for ICT policies and laws that are inclusive. This activity attracted participants from various institutions, including researchers, students and staff from Makerere University, the National Union of Women with Disabilities, I-freedom Network and NITA-U, among others.

Image source: WOUGNET Facebook page.

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VOICE issues legal notice to protect the right to privacy in Bangladesh

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

A legal notice has been issued by VOICE to the Secretary of Posts and Telecommunications and Chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) demanding protection of the rights of mobile consumers and particularly the right to privacy. The notice was issued by VOICE’s legal adviser, Advocate Tanzim Al Islam, on 5 November 2017.

Mobile phone users of Bangladesh have been suffering from disturbances caused by unwanted calls and text messages from mobile operating companies that promote and advertise their products without considering subscribers’ personal daily life routines and customers’ interest, which constitutes a public annoyance.

No specific legal framework exists to control disturbances caused by the mobile operators. Thus the legal notice urged the authorities to take steps immediately for establishing a guideline or policy regarding telecommunication consumer protection for controlling unwanted calls and text messages from mobile operators and protecting the right to privacy of consumers.

The notice also stated that if the authorities fail to comply with the right to privacy of consumers, that matter would be taken further to Public Interest Litigation under Article 102 of the Constitution of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh seeking proper justice.

Image source: Byron Barrett on Flickr.

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Pangea has a brand new communication strategy

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

In 2017 Pangea.org went through a process of refreshing its image and improving its communication methods, towards its members and the world. As a part of this process, the association’s website has been renewed: the new one has a modern and clearer image and a new structure to facilitate access to information. A new blog has been started to spread information not only about their work but also about subjects related to information and communications technologies, social and solidarity economy and social justice that affect society.

Pangea.org has made an effort to explain the difference between “free” services offered by large multinational companies and the ones offered by Pangea.org and other organisations of our local social economy. They made a video, in collaboration with some of their members, with the message “On the internet, a free product means you are the product.” This video and the campaign launched with it focus on the values behind our work (solidarity, equity, justice, sustainability, fair trade…), to highlight their unique traits and thus capture the interest of new potential members.

Pangea has also been busy migrating from ownCloud to Nextcloud and introducing new apps to improve their services.

Image source: Pangea.

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Nupef Institute launches collaborative multilingual website on spectrum usage policies and practices

Posted on | by Flavia Fascendini

The Nupef Institute supports the implementation of community networks in areas lacking internet access, both through the deployment of networks in regions that are not accessible (such as the Marohao communities in Maranhão where Nupef operated through 2017), and through the circulation of information on the dynamic use of spectrum.

The spectrum site gathers information, documentation and learning materials on initiatives, public policies and regulation regarding the dynamic use of spectrum and underutilised frequencies for the creation of community internet access networks where access is non-existent or precarious.

The portal, launched in 2017, was conceived as a reference space, with the aim of disseminating information about community network initiatives. The Nupef Institute acts as an editorial facilitator, as well as handling the maintenance of infrastructure, site administration and technical development. An 11-member editorial group brings together experts and activists from Brazil, Uruguay, South Africa, Australia and the United States who share their knowledge and references from concrete experiences.

In August 2018, the Nupef Institute will carry out an evaluation and planning with the editorial team to encourage dynamic collaboration on the site and broaden its reach. The content of the portal has been promoted through e-newsletters and through the Nupef Institute’s Facebook page.

Image source: Nupef Institute. Network installation in Penalva, state of Maranhão in the Northeast region of Brazil.

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