IFEX, formerly International Freedom of Expression Exchange, is a global network of 124 independent non-governmental organisations that work at a local, national, regional, or international level to defend and promote freedom of expression as a human right.
The office of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Organization of American States (OAS) was established by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 1997 to monitor OAS member states' compliance with the American Convention on Human Rights in the area of freedom of expression.
Digital rights are those human rights and legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other electronic devices, and telecommunications networks. The concept is particularly related to the protection and realization of existing rights, such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression, in the context of digital technologies, especially the Internet. The laws of several countries recognize a right to Internet access.
According to the U.S. Department of State's human rights report for 2022, there exists "significant human rights issues" in Ethiopia. In addition to extrajudicial killings and instances of "enforced disappearance", other human right issues in Ethiopia include arbitrary arrest, the censorship and unjustified arrests of journalists, the use of child soldiers, and more.
Source protection, sometimes also referred to as source confidentiality or in the U.S. as the reporter's privilege, is a right accorded to journalists under the laws of many countries, as well as under international law. It prohibits authorities, including the courts, from compelling a journalist to reveal the identity of an anonymous source for a story. The right is based on a recognition that without a strong guarantee of anonymity, many would be deterred from coming forward and sharing information of public interests with journalists.
Mass media in the Philippines consists of several types of media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, cinema, and websites.
Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of government censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression. The right is preserved in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. Nonetheless, the degree to which the right is upheld in practice varies greatly from one nation to another. In many nations, particularly those with authoritarian forms of government, overt government censorship is enforced. Censorship has also been claimed to occur in other forms and there are different approaches to issues such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws.
The Yogyakarta Principles is a document about human rights in the areas of sexual orientation and gender identity that was published as the outcome of an international meeting of human rights groups in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2006. The principles were supplemented and expanded in 2017 to include new grounds of gender expression and sex characteristics and a number of new principles. However, the Principles have never been accepted by the United Nations (UN) and the attempt to make gender identity and sexual orientation new categories of non-discrimination has been repeatedly rejected by the General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and other UN bodies.
Media Defence is a non-governmental organization established in 2008 to provide legal assistance to journalists, citizen journalists and independent media institutions. It also supports training in media law and promotes the exchange of information, litigation tools and strategies for the lawyers working on media freedom cases. It is based in London and has a global network of media lawyers and media freedom activists with whom it works on cases and projects.
The right to Internet access, also known as the right to broadband or freedom to connect, is the view that all people must be able to access the Internet in order to exercise and enjoy their rights to freedom of expression and opinion and other fundamental human rights, that states have a responsibility to ensure that Internet access is broadly available, and that states may not unreasonably restrict an individual's access to the Internet.
Frank La Rue is a Guatemalan labor and human rights law expert and served as UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, from August 2008 to August 2014. Along with American Human Rights attorneys, Anna Gallagher and Wallie Mason, Mr. La Rue is the founder of the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights (CALDH) and has been involved in the promotion of human rights for over 25 years. He was nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize by Mairead Corrigan, Northern Irish peace activist and 1976 laureate. Mr La Rue was previously the executive director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Europe. He has also served as Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO.
The Republic of Uruguay is located in South America, between Argentina, Brazil and the South Atlantic Ocean, with a population of 3,332,972. Uruguay gained independence and sovereignty from Spain in 1828 and has full control over its internal and external affairs. From 1973 to 1985 Uruguay was governed by a civil-military dictatorship which committed numerous human rights abuses.
Agnès Callamard is a French human-rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
The Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD) is a non-profit organisation based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The CLD works worldwide to promote, protect, and develop those human rights that underpin democracy, including the right to information (RTI), freedom of expression, freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly. The CLD regularly drafts and consults on legislation, conducts field research, publishes assessments and guidelines, assists with litigation, and provides training.
The Network Enforcement Act, also known colloquially as the Facebook Act, is a German law that was passed in the Bundestag that officially aims to combat fake news, hate speech and misinformation online.
Online hate speech is a type of speech that takes place online with the purpose of attacking a person or a group based on their race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, and/or gender. Online hate speech is not easily defined, but can be recognized by the degrading or dehumanizing function it serves.
In January 2020, the FTI Consulting company claimed that in May 2018 with "medium to high confidence" the phone of Jeff Bezos had been hacked by a file sent from the WhatsApp account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi Arabian embassy to the United States has denied the allegations. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post newspaper and founder of the company Amazon, engaged FTI Consulting in February 2019 after the National Enquirer in January 2019 reported details of Bezos's affair. FTI Consulting did not link the National Enquirer to the hack.
Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen Reventlow is a human rights lawyer who specialises in strategic litigation at the intersection of human rights, social justice, and technology. She is the founding director of Systemic Justice, which works to radically transform how the law works for communities fighting for racial, social, and economic justice. She previously founded and built Digital Freedom Fund, which advances digital rights in Europe through strategic litigation.
The Twentieth Anniversary Joint Declaration: Challenges to Freedom of Expression in the next decade, which was published in 2019, is one of many Joint Declarations of the representatives of intergovernmental bodies to protect free media and expression.
Political repression is a visible scenario under the leadership of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed after 2018, characterized by severe human rights violation, restriction of press, speeches, dissents, activism and journalism that are critical to his government. Similar to TPLF-led EPRDF regime, there was a raise of censorship in the country, particularly internet shutdowns under the context of anti-terror legislation labelling them "disinformation and war narratives" since the raise of armed conflict in Ethiopia. In June 2018, Abiy unblocked 64 internet access that include blogs and news outlets.
