The experts stressed in their statement that “COVID-19 has made us even more reliant on digital technologies and the space they create for civic engagement. With the closing of civic space and restrictions on offline media, access to universal, open, affordable, secure, and stable Internet is vital to save lives, to prevent abuses, to continue to promote and protect human rights and urgently increase access to information”.
“States continue to leverage the Internet and digital technologies to quell dissent, engage in unlawful surveillance, and strip individuals of their capacity for collective action, both online and off. We are deeply concerned that such patterns of abuse have accelerated under the exigencies of the global pandemic,” the rapporteurs said.
“Digital technologies that construct and surround the space in which we conduct our lives during these unprecedented times must not be used by governments or companies to restrict fundamental freedoms, reduce civic space, and target civil society actors, including human rights defenders,” they added.
These independent experts had issued the statement after discussing a range of issues during the "RightsCon" conference, particularly lessons learned from the pandemic, surveillance techniques, security, data collection, racial discrimination, and cyberattacks against human rights defenders and protest movements.
The statement was jointly made by the experts: Mr. Clément Nyaletsossi Voule, Special Rapporteur on the right to peaceful assembly and association; Ms. E. Tendayi Achiume, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism; Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Mr. David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression; Ms. Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Ms. Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism.
