Interviewer: Jillian York

Mohamed El Gohary is an open-knowledge enthusiast. After majoring in Biomedical Engineering in October 2010, he switched careers to work as a Social Media manager for Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper until October 2011, when he joined Global Voices contracts managing Lingua until the end of 2021. He now works for IFEX as the MENA Network Engagement Specialist.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

York: What does free speech or free expression mean for you?

Free speech, for me, freedom of expression, means the ability for people to govern themselves. It means to me that the real meaning of democracy can not happen without freedom of speech, without people expressing their needs in different spectrums. The idea of civic space, the idea of people basically living their lives and using different means of communication for getting things done right through freedom of speech.

York: What’s an experience that shaped your views on freedom of expression?

Well, my background is using the internet. So I always believed, in the early days of using the internet, that it would enable people to express themselves in a way for a better democratic process. But right now that changed because of the decentralization of online spaces to centralized spaces which are the antithesis of democracy. So the internet turns into an oligarch’s world. Which is, again, going back to freedom of expression. I think there are ways that are unchartered territories in terms of activism, in terms of platforms online and offline, to maybe reinvent the wheel in a way for people to have a better democratic process in terms of freedom of expression. 

York: You came up in an era where social media had so much promise, and now, like you said about the oligarchical online space—which I tend to agree with—we’re in kind of a different era. What are your views right now on regulation of social media?

Well, it’s still related to the democratic process. It’s a similar conversation to, let’s say, the Internet Governance Forum where… where is the decision making? Who has the power dynamics around decision making? So there are governments, then there are private companies, then there is law and the rule of law, and then there is civil society. And there’s good civil society and there’s bad civil society, in terms of their relationship with both governments and companies. So it goes back to freedom of expression as a collective and in an individual manner. And it comes to people and freedom of assembly in terms of absolute right and in terms of practice, to reinvent the democratic process. It’s the whole system. It turns out it’s not just freedom of expression. Freedom of expression has an important role, and the democratic process can’t be reinvented without looking at freedom of expression. The whole system, democracy, Western democracy and how different countries apply it in ways that affects and creates the power of the rich and powerful while the rest of the population just loses their hope in different ways. Everything goes back to reinventing the democratic process. And freedom of expression is a big part of it.

York: So this is a special interview, we’re here at the IFEX general meeting. What are some of the things that you’re seeing here, either good or bad, and maybe even what are some things that give you hope about the IFEX network?

I think, inside the IFEX network and the extended IFEX network, it’s the importance of connection. It’s the importance of collaboration. Different governments try to always work together to establish their power structures, while the resources governments have is not always available to civil society. So it’s important for civil society organizations—and IFEX is an example of collaboration between a large number of organizations around the world—in all scales, in all directions, that these kinds of collaborations happen in different organizations while still encouraging every organization in itself to look at itself, to look at itself as an organization, to look at how it’s working. To ask themselves, is it just a job? Are we working for a cause? Are we working for a cause in the right way? It’s the other side of the coin to how governments work and maintain existing power structures. There needs to be the other side of the coin in terms of, again, reinventing the democratic process.

York: Is there anything I didn’t ask that you want to mention?

My only frustration is where organizations work as if it is a job, and they only do the minimum, for example. And that’s in a good case scenario. A bad case scenario is when a civil society organization is working for the government or for private companies—where organizations can be a burden more than a resource. I don’t know how to approach that without cost. Cost is difficult, cost is expensive, it’s ugly, it’s not something you look for when you start your day. And there is a very small number of people and organizations who would be willing to even think about paying the price of being an inconvenience to organizations that are burdening entities. That would be my immediate and long term frustration with civil society at least in my vicinity.

Who is your free speech hero?

For me, as an Egyptian, that would be Alaa Abd El-Fattah. As a person who is a perfect example of looking forward to being an inconvenience. And there are not a lot of people who would be this kind of inconvenience. There are many people who appear like they are an inconvenience, but they aren’t really. This would be my hero.

Nompilo Simanje is a lawyer by profession and is the Africa Advocacy and Partnerships Lead at the International Press Institute. She leads the IPI Africa Program which monitors and collects data on press freedom threats and violations across the continent, including threats to journalists’ safety and gendered attacks against journalists both online and offline to inform evidence-based advocacy. Nompilo is an expert on the intersection of technology, the law, and human rights. She has years of experience in advocacy and capacity building aimed at promoting media freedom, freedom of expression, access to information, and the right to privacy. She also currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise. Simanje is an alumnus of the Open Internet for Democracy Leaders Program and the US State Department IVLP Program on Promoting Cybersecurity.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

York: What does free expression mean to you? 

For me, free expression or free speech is the capacity for one to be able to communicate their views and their opinions without any fear or without thinking that there might be some reprisals or repercussions for freely engaging on any conversation or any issue which might be personal, but also even on any issue of public interest. 

What are some of the qualities that have made you passionate about free speech?

Being someone who works in the civil society sector, I think when I look at free speech and free expression, I view it as an avenue for the realization of several other rights. One key thing for me is that free expression encourages interactive dialogue, it encourages public dialogue, which is very important. Especially for democracy, but also for transparency and accountability. Being based in Africa, we are always having conversations around corruption, around accountability by government actors and public officials. And I feel that free expression is a vehicle for that, because it allows people to be able to question those that hold power and to criticize certain conduct by people that are in power. Those are some of the qualities that I feel are very important for me when I think about free expression. It enables transparency and accountability, but also holding those in power to account, which is something I believe is very important for democracies in Africa. 

So you work all around the African continent. Broadly speaking, what are some of the biggest online threats you’re seeing today? 

The digital age has been quite a revolutionary development, especially when you think about free expression. And I always talk about this when I engage on the topic of digital rights, but it has opened the avenue for people to communicate across boundaries, across borders, across countries, but, at the same time—in terms of the impact of threats and risks—they become equally huge as well. As part of the work that I have been doing, there are a few key things that I’ve seen online. One would be the issue of legislation—that countries have increased or upscaled their regulation of the online space. And one of the biggest threats for me has been lawfare, seeing how countries have been implementing old and new laws to undermine free expression online. For example, cybercrime laws or even existing criminal law code or penal codes. So I’ve seen that increasingly happening in Africa. 

Other key things that come to mind are online harassment, which is also happening in various forms. So just sometime last year at the 77th Session of the ACHPR (African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights) we hosted a side event on the online safety of female journalists in Africa. And there were so many cases which were being shared about how female journalists are fearing online harassment. One big issue discussed was targeted disinformation. Where individuals spread false information about a certain individual as a way of discrediting them or undermining them or just attempting to silence them and ensure that they don’t communicate freely online. But also sometimes online harassment in the form of doxxing. Where personal details are shared online. Someone’s address. Someone’s email. And people are mobilized to attack that person. I’ve seen all those cases happening and I feel that online harassment especially towards female journalists and politicians continue to be some of the biggest threats to free expression in the region. In addition, of course, to what state actors are doing. 

I think also, generally, what I’m also seeing as part of the regulation aspect, is sometimes even the suspension of news websites. Where journalists are using those platforms—you know, like podcasts, Twitter spaces—to freely express. So this increase in regulation is one of the key things I feel continues to threaten online expression, particularly in the region.

You also work globally, you serve on a couple of advisory boards, and I’m curious, coming from an African perspective, how you see things like the Cybercrime Treaty or other international developments impacting the nations that you work in? 

It’s a brilliant question because the adjunct committee for the UN Cybercrime Treaty just recently met. I think one of the aspects I’ve noticed is that sometimes African civil society actors are not meaningfully participating in global processes. And as a result, they don’t get to share their experiences and get to reflect on how some developments at the global level will impact the region. 

Just taking on the example you shared about the UN Cybercrime Treaty, as part of my role at IPI, we actually submitted a letter to the adjunct committee with about 49 other civil society actors within Africa, highlighting to the committee that if this treaty is enacted in the way it was currently crafted, with wide scope in terms of the crimes and minimal human rights safeguards, it would actually undermine free expression. And this was informed by our experiences with cybercrime laws in the region. And we’re saying we have seen how some authoritarian governments in the region have been using cybercrime laws. So imagine having a global treaty or a global cybercrime convention. It can be a tool for other authoritarian governments to justify some of their conduct which has been targeted at undermining free expression. Some of the examples include criminalizing inciting public violence or criminalizing publishing falsehoods. We have seen that consistently in several countries and how those laws have been used to undermine expression. I definitely think that whenever there are global engagements about conventions that can undermine fundamental rights it’s very important for Africa to be represented, particularly civil society, because civil society is there to promote human rights and ensure that human rights are safeguarded. 

Also, there have been other key discussions happening, for example, with the open-ended working group on ICTs. We’ve had conversations about cyber capacity-building in the region and how that would also look for Africa where internet penetration is not at its highest and already there are additional divisions where everyone is not able to freely express themselves online. I think all those deliberations need to be taken into account and they need to be contextualized. My opinion is that when I look at global processes and I think about Africa, I always feel that it’s important for civil society actors and key stakeholders to contribute meaningfully to those processes, but also for us to contextualize some of those discussions and deliberate on how they will potentially impact us. Even when I think about the Global Digital Compact and all those issues around the Compact that the Compact seeks to address, we also need to contextualize them with our experiences with countries in the region which have ongoing conflicts and with countries in the region that are led by military regimes—especially in West Africa. All those issues need to be taken into account when we deliberate about global conventions or global policies. So that’s how I’ve been approaching these conversations around the global process, but trying to contextualize them based on what’s happening in the region and what our experiences have been with similar legislation and policies. 

I’m also really curious, has your work touched on issues of content moderation? 

Yes, but not broadly, because I think our interaction with the platforms has been quite minimal, but, yes, we have engaged platforms before. I think I’ll give you an example of Somalia. There’ve been so many reported cases by our partners at Somali Journalist Syndicate where individual accounts of journalists have been suspended, permanently suspended, and sometimes taken down, simply because political sympathizers of the government consistently report those accounts for expressing dissenting views. Or state actors have reached out to the platforms and asked them to intervene and suspend either pages or individual accounts. So we’ve had conversations with the platforms and we have issued public statements to highlight that, as far as content moderation is concerned, it is very important for the platforms to be transparent about requests that they’re receiving from governments, and also to be deliberate as far as media freedom is concerned. Especially where content relates to content or news that has been disseminated by media outlets or pages or accounts that have been utilized by journalists. Because in some countries you see governments consistently trying to undermine or ensure that journalists or media outlets do not fully utilize the online space. So that’s the angle that we have interacted with the platforms as far as content moderation is concerned—just ensuring that as they undertake their work they prioritize media freedom, they prioritize journalists, but also they understand the operating context, that there are countries that are quite authoritarian where dissenting voices are being targeted. So we always try to engage the platforms whenever we get an opportunity to raise awareness where platforms are suspending accounts or taking down content where such content genuinely relates to expressional protected speech. 

York: Did you have any formative experiences that helped shape your views on freedom of expression? 

Funny story actually. When I was in high school I was in certain positions of leadership as a head girl in my high school, but also serving in Junior Parliament. We had this institution put on by the Youth Council where young people in high school can form a shadow Parliament representing different constituencies across the country. I happened to be a part of that in high school. So, of course, that meant being in public spaces, and also generally my identity being known outside my circles. So what that also meant was that it opened an avenue for me to be targeted by trolls online. 

At some point when I was in high school people posted some defamatory, false information about me on an online platform. And over the years I’ve seen that post still there, still in existence. When that happened, I was in high school, I was still a child. But I was interacting on Facebook, you know, we have used Facebook for so many years, that’s the platform I think so many of us have been most familiar with from the time we were still kids. When this post was put up it was posted through a certain page that was a tabloid of sorts. And no one knew who was behind that page, no one knew who was the administrator of that page. What that meant for me was there was no recourse. Because I didn’t even know who was behind this post, who posted this defamatory and false information about me. 

I think from there it really triggered an interest in me about regulation of free expression online. How do you approach issues around anonymity and how far can we go in terms of protecting free expression online in instances where, indeed, rights of other people are also being undermined? It really helped to shape my thoughts around regulation of social media, regulation of content online. So I think, for me, the position even in terms of the work I’ve continued to do in my adult life around digital rights literacy, I’ve really tried to emphasize a digital citizenship where the key focus is really to ensure that we can freely express, but we need to ensure the rights of others. Which is why I strongly condemn hate speech. Which is why I strongly condemn targeted attacks, for instance, on female politicians and female journalists. Because I know that while we can freely express ourselves, there are certain limitations or boundaries that we shouldn’t cross. And I think I learned that from experiencing that targeted attack on me online. 

York: Is there anything I haven’t touched on yet that you’d like to talk about? 

I’d like to maybe just speak briefly about the implications of free expression being undermined especially in the online space. And I’m emphasizing this because we are in the digital age where the online space has really provided a platform for the full realization of so many fundamental rights. So one of the key things I’ve seen is the increase in self-censorship. For example, if individuals are being arrested over their Tweets and Facebook posts, news websites are being suspended, there’s also an increase in self-censorship. But also limited participation in public dialogue. We have so many elections happening in 2024, and we’ve had recent elections happen in the region, also. Nigeria was a big election. DRC was another big election. What I’ve been seeing is really limited participation, especially by high risk groups like women and LGBTQI communities. Especially, for example, when they’ve been targeted in Uganda through legislation. So there’s been limited participation and interactive dialogue in the region because of all these various developments that have been happening. 

Also, one aspect that comes to mind for me is the correlation between free expression and freedom of assembly and association. Because we are also interacting with groups and other like-minded people in the online space. So while we are freely expressing, the online space is also a platform for assembly and association. And some people are also being robbed of that experience, of freely associating online, because of the threats or the attacks that have been targeting free expression. I think it’s also important for Africa to think about these implications—that when you’re targeting free expression, you’re also targeting other fundamental rights. And I think that’s quite important for me to emphasize as part of this conversation. 

York: Who is your free speech hero? Someone who has really inspired you? 

I haven’t really thought about that actually! I don’t think I have a specific person in mind, but I generally just appreciate everyone who freely expresses their mind, especially on Twitter, because Twitter can be quite brutal at times. But there are several individuals that I look at and really admire for their tenacity in continuing to engage on the platforms even when they’re constantly being targeted. I won’t mention a specific person, but I think, from a Zimbabwen perspective, I would highlight that I’ve seen several female politicians in Zimbabwe being targeted. Actually, I will mention, there’s a female politician in Zimbabwe, Fadzayi Mahere, she’s also an advocate. I’ll mention her as a free speech hero. Because every time I speak about online attacks or online gender-based violence in digital rights trainings, I always mention her. That’s because I’ve seen how she has been able to stand against so many coordinated attacks from a political front and from a personal front. Just to highlight that last year she published a video which had been circulating and trending online about a case where police had allegedly assaulted a woman who had been carrying a child on her back. And she tweeted about that and she was actually arrested, charged, and convicted for, I think, “publishing falsehoods”, or, there’s a provision in the criminal law code that I think is like “publishing falsehoods to undermine public authority or the police service.” So I definitely think she is a press freedom hero, her story is quite an interesting story to follow in terms of her experiences in Zimbabwe as a young lawyer and as a politician, and a female politician at that. 

Today marks World Press Freedom Day, an annual celebration instituted by the United Nations in 1993 to raise awareness of press freedom and remind governments of their duties under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, the day is dedicated to the importance of journalism and freedom of expression in the context of the current global environmental crisis.

Journalists everywhere face challenges in reporting on climate change and other environmental issues. Whether lawsuits, intimidation, arrests, or disinformation campaigns, these challenges are myriad. For instance, journalists and human rights campaigners attending the COP28 Summit held in Dubai last autumn faced surveillance and intimidation. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented arrests of environmental journalists in Iran and Venezuela, among other countries. And in 2022, a Guardian journalist was murdered while on the job in the Brazilian Amazon.

The threats faced by journalists are the same as those faced by ordinary internet users around the world. According to CPJ, there are 320 journalists jailed worldwide for doing their job. And ranked among the top jailers of journalists last year were China, Myanmar, Belarus, Russia, Vietnam, Israel, and Iran; countries in which internet users also face censorship, intimidation, and in some cases, arrest. 

On this World Press Freedom Day, we honor the journalists, human rights defenders, and internet users fighting for a better world. EFF will continue to fight for the right to freedom of expression and a free and open internet for every internet user, everywhere.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Rebecca MacKinnon is Vice President, Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that hosts Wikipedia. Author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (2012), she is co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices, and  founding director of Ranking Digital Rights, a research and advocacy program at New America. From 1998-2004 she was CNN’s Bureau Chief in Beijing and Tokyo. She has taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Pennsylvania, and held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and the University of California. She holds an AB magna cum laude in Government from Harvard and was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan.

David Greene: Can you introduce yourself and give us a bit of your background? 

My name is Rebecca MacKinnon, I am presently the Vice President for Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation, but I’ve worn quite a number of hats working in the digital rights space for almost twenty years. I was co-founder of Global Voices, which at the time we called it International Bloggers’ Network, which is about to hit its twentieth anniversary. I was one of the founding board members of the Global Networking Initiative, GNI. I wrote a book called “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom,” which came out more than a decade ago. It didn’t sell very well, but apparently it gets assigned in classes still so I still hear about it. I was also a founding member of Ranking Digital Rights, which is a ranking of the big tech companies and the biggest telecommunications companies on the extent to which they are or are not protecting their users’ freedom of expression and privacy. I left that in 2021 and ended up with the Wikimedia Foundation, and it’s never a dull moment! 

Greene: And you were a journalist before all of this, right? 

Yes, I worked for CNN for twelve years in Beijing for nine years where I ended up Bureau Chief and Correspondent, and in Tokyo for almost three years where I was also Bureau Chief and Correspondent. That’s also where I first experienced the magic of the global internet in a journalistic context and also experienced the internet arriving in China and the government immediately trying to figure out both how to take advantage of it economically but also to control it enough that the Communist Party would not lose power. 

Greene: At what point did it become apparent that the internet would bring both benefits and threats to freedom of expression?

At the beginning I think the media, industry, policymakers, kind of everybody, assumed—you know, this is like in 1995 when the internet first showed up commercially in China—everybody assumed “there’s no way the Chinese Communist Party can survive this,” and we were all a bit naive. And our reporting ended up influencing naive policies in that regard. And perhaps naive understanding of things like Facebook revolutions and things like that in the activism world. It really began to be apparent just how authoritarianism was adapting to the internet and starting to adapt the internet. And how China was really Exhibit A for how that was playing out and could play out globally. That became really apparent in the mid-to-late 2000s as I was studying Chinese blogging communities and how the government was controlling private companies, private platforms, to carry out censorship and surveillance work. 

Greene: And it didn’t stop with China, did it? 

It sure didn’t! And in the book I wrote I only had a chapter on China and talked about how if the trajectory the Western democratic world was on just kind of continued in a straight line we were going to go more in China’s direction unless policymakers, the private sector, and everyone else took responsibility for making sure that the internet would actually support human rights. 

Greene: It’s easy to talk about authoritarian threats, but we see some of the same concerns in democratic countries as well. 

We’re all just one bad election away from tyranny, aren’t we? This is again why when we’re talking to lawmakers, not only do we ask them to apply a Wikipedia test—if this law is going to break Wikipedia, then it’s a bad law—but also, how will this stand up to a bad election? If you think a law is going to be good for protecting children or fighting disinformation under the current dominant political paradigm, what happens if someone who has no respect for the rule of law, no respect for democratic institutions or processes ends up in power? And what will they do with that law? 

Greene: This happens so much within disinformation, for example, and I always think of it in terms of, what power are we giving the state? Is it a good thing that the state has this power? Well, let’s switch things up and go to the basics. What does free speech mean to you? 

People talk about is it free as in speech? Is it free as in beer? What does “free” mean? I am very much in the camp that freedom of expression needs to be considered in the context of human rights. So my free speech does not give me freedom to advocate for a pogrom against the neighboring neighborhood. That is violating the rights of other people. And I actually think that Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights—it may not be perfect—but it gives us a really good framework to think about what is the context of freedom of expression or free speech as situated with other rights? And how do we make sure that, if there are going to be limits on freedom of expression to prevent me from calling for a pogrom of my neighbors, then the limitations placed on my speech are necessary and proportionate and cannot be abused? And therefore it’s very important that whoever is imposing those limits is being held accountable, that their actions are sufficiently transparent, and that any entity’s actions to limit my speech—whether it’s a government or an internet service provider—that I understand who has the power to limit my speech or limit what I can know or limit what I can access, so that I can even know what I don’t know! So that I know what is being kept from me. I also know who has the authority to restrict my speech, under what circumstances, so that I know what I can do to hold them accountable. That is the essence of freedom of speech within human rights and where power is held appropriately accountable. 

Greene: How do you think about the ways that your speech might harm people? 

You can think of it in terms of the other rights in the Universal Declaration. There’s the right to privacy. There’s the right to assembly. There’s the right to life! So for me to advocate for people in that building over there to go kill people in that other building, that’s violating a number of rights that I should not be able to violate. But what’s complicated, when we’re talking about rules and rights and laws and enforcement of laws and governance online, is that we somehow think it can be more straightforward and black and white than governance in the physical world is. So what do we consider to be appropriate law enforcement in the city of San Francisco? It’s a hot topic! And reasonable people of a whole variety of backgrounds reasonably disagree and will never agree! So you can’t just fix crime in San Francisco the way you fix the television. And nobody in their right mind would expect that you should expect that, right? But somehow in the internet space there’s so much policy conversation around making the internet safe for children. But nobody’s running around saying, “let’s make San Francisco safe for children in the same way.” Because they know that if you want San Francisco to be 100% safe for children, you’re going to be Pyongyang, North Korea! 

Greene: Do you think that’s because with technology some people just feel like there’s this techno-solutionism? 

Yeah, there’s this magical thinking. I have family members who think that because I can fix something with their tech settings I can perform magic. I think because it’s new, because it’s a little bit mystifying for many people, and because I think we’re still in the very early stages of people thinking about governance of digital spaces and digital activities as an extension of real world activities. And they’re thinking more about, okay, it’s like a car we need to put seatbelts on.

Greene: I’ve heard that from regulators many times. Does the fact that the internet is speech, does that make it different from cars? 

Yeah, although increasingly cars are becoming more like the internet! Because a car is essentially a smartphone that can also be a very lethal weapon. And it’s also a surveillance device, it’s also increasingly a device that is a conduit for speech. So actually it’s going the other way!

Greene: I want to talk about misinformation a bit. You’re at Wikimedia, and so, independent of any concern people have about misinformation, Wikipedia is the product and its goal is to be accurate. What do we do with the “problem” of misinformation?

Well, I think it’s important to be clear about what is misinformation and what is disinformation. And deal with them—I mean they overlap, the dividing line can be blurry—but, nonetheless, it’s important to think about both in somewhat different ways. Misinformation being inaccurate information that is not necessarily being spread maliciously with intent to mislead. It might just be, you know, your aunt seeing something on Facebook and being like, “Wow, that’s crazy. I’m going to share it with 25 friends.” And not realizing that they’re misinformed. Whereas disinformation is when someone is spreading lies for a purpose. Whether it’s in an information warfare context where one party in a conflict is trying to convince a population of something about their own government which is false, or whatever it is. Or misinformation about a human rights activist and, say, an affair they allegedly had and why they deserve whatever fate they had… you know, just for example. That’s disinformation. And at the Wikimedia Foundation—just to get a little into the weeds because I think it helps us think about these problems—Wikipedia is a platform whose content is not written by staff of the Wikimedia Foundation. It’s all contributed by volunteers, anybody can be a volunteer. They can go on Wikipedia and contribute to a page or create a page. Whether that content stays, of course, depends on whether the content they’ve added adheres to what constitutes well-sourced, encyclopedic content. There’s a whole hierarchy of people whose job it is to remove content that does not fit the criteria. And one could talk about that for several podcasts. But that process right there is, of course, working to counter misinformation. Because anything that’s not well-sourced—and they have rules about what is a reliable source and what isn’t—will be taken down. So the volunteer Wikipedians, kind of through their daily process of editing and enforcing rules, are working to eliminate as much misinformation as possible. Of course, it’s not perfect. 

Greene: [laughing] What do you mean it’s not perfect? It must be perfect!

What is true is a matter of dispute even between scientific journals or credible news sources, or what have you. So there’s lots of debates and all those debates are in the history tab of every page which are public, about what source is credible and what the facts are, etc. So this is kind of the self-cleaning oven that’s dealing with misinformation. The human hive mind that’s dealing with this. Disinformation is harder because you have a well-funded state actor who not only may be encouraging people—not necessary people who are employed by that actor themselves, but people who are kind of nationalistic and supporters of that government or politician or people who are just useful idiots—to go on and edit Wikipedia to promote certain narratives. But that’s kind of the least of it. You also, of course, have threats, credible, physical threats against editors who are trying to delete the disinformation and staff of the Foundation who are trying to support editors in dealing with investigating and identifying what is actually a disinformation campaign and supports volunteers in addressing that, sometimes with legal support, sometimes with technical support and other support. But people are in jail in one country in particular right now because they were fighting disinformation on the projects in their language. In Belarus, we had people, volunteers, who were jailed for the same reason. We have people who are under threat in Russia, and you have governments who will say, “Wikipedia contains disinformation about our, for example, Special Military Exercise in Ukraine because they’re calling it ‘an invasion’ which is disinformation, so therefore they’re breaking the law against disinformation so we have to threaten them.” So the disinformation piece—fighting it can become very dangerous. 

Greene: What I hear is there are threats to freedom of expression in efforts to fight disinformation and, certainly in terms of state actors, those might be malicious. Are there any well-meaning efforts to fight disinformation that also bring serious threats to freedom of expression? 

Yeah, the people who say, “Okay, we should just require the platforms to remove all content that is anything from COVID disinformation to certain images that might falsely present… you know, deepfake images, etc.” Content-focused efforts to fight misinformation and disinformation will result in over-censorship because you can almost never get all the nuance and context right. Humor, satire, critique, scientific reporting on a topic or about disinformation itself or about how so-and-so perpetrated disinformation on X, Y, Z… you have to actually talk about it. But if the platform is required to censor the disinformation you can’t even use that platform to call out disinformation, right? So content-based efforts to fight disinformation go badly and get weaponized. 

Greene: And, as the US Supreme Court has said, there’s actually some social value to the little white lie. 

There can be. There can be. And, again, there’s so many topics on which reasonable people disagree about what the truth is. And if you start saying that certain types of misinformation or disinformation are illegal, you can quickly have a situation where the government is becoming arbiter of the truth in ways that can be very dangerous. Which brings us back to… we’re one bad election away from tyranny.

Greene: In your past at Ranking Digital Rights you looked more at the big corporate actors rather than State actors. How do you see them in terms of freedom of expression—they have their own freedom of expression rights, but there’s also their users—what does that interplay look to you? 

Especially in relation to the disinformation thing, when I was at Ranking Digital Rights we put out a report that also related to regulation. When we’re trying to hold these companies accountable, whether we’re civil society or government, what’s the appropriate approach? The title of the report was, “It’s Not the Content, it’s the Business Model.” Because the issue is not about the fact that, oh, something bad appears on Facebook. It’s how it’s being targeted, how it’s being amplified, how that speech and the engagement around it is being monetized, that’s where most of the harm takes place. And here’s where privacy law would be rather helpful! But no, instead we go after Section 230. We could do a whole other podcast on that, but… I digress. 

I think this is where bringing in international human rights law around freedom of expression is really helpful. Because the US constitutional law, the First Amendment, doesn’t really apply to companies. It just protects the companies from government regulation of their speech. Whereas international human rights law does apply to companies. There’s this framework, The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, where nation-states have the ultimate responsibility—duty—to protect human rights, but companies and platforms, whether you’re a nonprofit or a for-profit, have a responsibility to respect human rights. And everybody has a responsibility to provide remedy, redress. So in that context, of course, it doesn’t contradict the First Amendment at all, but it sort of adds another layer to corporate accountability that can be used in a number of ways. And that is being used more actively in the European context. But Article 19 is not just about your freedom of speech, it’s also your freedom of access to information, which is part of it, and your freedom to form an opinion without interference. Which means that if you are being manipulated and you don’t even know it—because you are on this platform that’s monetizing people’s ability to manipulate you—that’s a violation of your freedom of expression under international law. And that’s a problem that companies, platforms of any kind—including if Wikimedia were to allow that to happen, which they don’t—anyone should be held accountable for. 

Greene: Just in terms of the role of the State in this interplay, because you could say that companies should operate within a human rights framing, but then we see different approaches around the world. Is it okay or is it too much power for the state to require them to do that? 

Here’s the problem. If the States were perfect in achieving their human rights duties, then we wouldn’t have a problem and we could totally trust states to regulate companies in our interest and in ways that protect our human rights. But there is no such state. There are some that are further away on the spectrum than others, but they’re all on a spectrum and nobody is at that position of utopia, and they will never get there. And so, given that all states in large ways or small, in different ways, are making demands of internet platforms, companies generally, that reasonable numbers of people believe violates their rights, then we need accountability. And that holding the state accountable for what it’s demanding of the private sector, making sure that’s transparent and that the state does not have absolute power is of utmost importance. And when you have situations where a government is just blatantly violating rights, and a company—even a well-meaning company that wants to do the right thing— is just stuck between a rock and a hard place. You can be really transparent about the fact that you’re complying with bad law, but you’re stuck in this place where if you refuse to comply then your employees go to jail. Or other bad things happen. And so what do you do other than just try and let people know? And then the state tells you, “Oh, you can’t tell people because that's a state secret.” So what do you do then? Do you just stop operating? So one can be somewhat sympathetic. Some of the corporate accountability rhetoric has gone a little overboard in not recognizing that if the state’s are failing to do their job, we have a problem. 

Greene: What’s the role of either the State or the companies if you have two people and one person is making it hard for the other to speak? Whether through heckling or just creating an environment where the other person doesn’t feel safe speaking? Is there a role for either the State or the companies where you have two peoples’ speech rights butting up against each other? 

We have this in private physical spaces all the time. If you’re at a comedy show and somebody gets up and starts threatening the stand-up comedian, obviously, security throws them out! I think in physical space we have some general ideas about that, that work okay. And that we can apply in virtual space, although it’s very contextual and, again, somebody has to make a decision—whose speech is more important than whose safety? Choices are going to be made. They’re not always going to be, in hindsight, the right choices, because sometimes you have to act really quickly and you don’t know if somebody’s life is in danger or not. Or how dangerous is this person speaking? But you have to err on the side of protecting life and limb. And then you might have realized at the end of the day that wasn’t the right choice. But are you being transparent about what your processes are—what you’re going to do under what circumstances? So people know, okay, well this is really predictable. They said they were going to x if I did y, and I did y and they did indeed take action, and if I think that they unfairly took action then there’s some way of appealing. That it’s not just completely opaque and unaccountable. 

This is a very overly simplistic description of very complex problems, but I’m now working at a platform. Yes, it’s a nonprofit, public interest platform, but our Trust and Safety team are working with volunteers who are enforcing rules and every day—well, I don’t know if it’s every day because they’re the Trust and Safety team so they don’t tell me exactly what’s going on—but there are frequent decisions around people’s safety. And what enables the volunteer community to basically both trust each other enough, and trust the platform operator enough, for the whole thing not to collapse due to mistrust and anger is that you’re being open and transparent enough about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it so that if you did make a mistake there’s a way to address it and be honest about it. 

Greene: So at least at Wikimedia you have the overriding value of truthfulness. At another platform should they value wanting to preserve places for people who otherwise wouldn’t have places to speak? People who are historically or culturally don’t have the opportunities to speak. How should they handle these instances of people being heckled down or shouted down off of a site? From your perspective, how should they respond to that? Should they make an effort to preserve these spaces? 

This is where I think in Silicon Valley in particular you often hear this thing that the technology is neutral— “we treat everybody the same.” —

Greene: And it’s not true.

Oh, of course it’s not true! But that’s the rhetoric. But that is held up as being “the right thing.” But that’s like saying, “Okay, we’re going to administer public housing in a way” — and it’s not a perfect comparison—being completely blind to the context and the socio-economic and political realities of the human beings that you are taking action upon is sort of like, again, if you’re operating a public housing system, or whatever, and you’re not taking into account at all the socio-economic backgrounds or ethnic backgrounds of people for whom you’re making decisions, you’re going to be perpetuating and, most likely, amplifying social injustice. So people who run public housing or universities and so on are quite familiar with this notion that being neutral is actually not neutral. It’s perpetuating existing social, economic, and political power imbalances. And we found that’s absolutely the case with social media claiming to be neutral. And the vulnerable people end up losing out. That’s what the research has shown and the activism has shown. 

And, you know, in the Wikimedia community there are debates about this. There are people who have been editing for a long time who say, “we have to be neutral.” But on the other hand—what’s very clear—is the greater diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds and languages and genres, etc of the people contributing to an article on a given topic the better it is. So if you want something to actually have integrity, you can’t just have one type of person working on it. And so there’s all kinds of reasons why it’s important as a platform operator that we do everything we can to ensure that this is a welcoming space for people of all backgrounds. That people who are under threat feel safe contributing to the platforms and not just rich white guys in Northern Europe. 

Greene: And at the same time we can’t expect them to be more perfect than the real world, also, right? 

Well, yeah, but you do have to recognize that the real world is the real world and there are these power dynamics going on that you have to take into account and you can decide to amplify them by pretending they don’t exist, or you can work actively to compensate in a manner that is consistent with human rights standards. 

Greene: Okay, one more question for you. Who is your free speech hero and why? 

Wow, that’s a good question, nobody has asked me that before in that very direct way. I think I really have to say sort of a group of people who really set me on the path of caring deeply for the rest of my life about free speech. Those are the people in China, most of whom I met when I was a journalist there, who stood up to tell the truth despite tremendous threats like being jailed, or worse. And oftentimes the determination that I would witness from even very ordinary people that “I am right, and I need to say this. And I know I’m taking a risk, but I must do it.” And it’s because of my interactions with such people in my twenties when I was starting out as a journalist in China that set me on this path. And I am grateful to them all, including several who are no longer on this earth including Liu Xiaobo, who received a Nobel prize when he was in jail before he died. 

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.*

Obioma Okonkwo is a lawyer and human rights advocate. She is currently the Head of Legal at Media Rights Agenda (MRA), a non-governmental organization based in Nigeria whose focus is to promote and defend freedom of expression, press freedom, digital rights and access to information within Nigeria and across Africa. She is passionate about advancing freedom of expression, media freedom, access to information, and digital rights. She also has extensive experience in litigating, researching, advocating and training around these issues. Obioma is an alumnus of the Open Internet for Democracy Leaders Programme, a fellow of the African School of Internet Governance, and a Media Viability Ambassador with the Deutsche Welle Akademie.

 York: What does free speech or free expression mean to you?

In my view, free speech is an intrinsic right that allows citizens, journalists and individuals to express themselves freely without repressive restriction. It is also the ability to speak, be heard, and participate in social life as well as political discussion, and this includes the right to disseminate information and the right to know. Considering my work around press freedom and media rights, I would also say that free speech is when the media can gather and disseminate information to the public without restrictions.

 York: Can you tell me about an experience in your life that helped shape your views on free speech?

 An experience that shaped my views on free speech happened in 2013, while I was in University. Some of my schoolmates were involved in a ghastly car accident—as a result of a bad road—which resulted in their death. This led the students to start an online campaign demanding that the government should repair the road and compensate the victims’ families. Due to this campaign, the road was repaired and the victims’ families were compensated.  Another instance is the #End SARS protest, a protest against police brutality and corrupt practices in Nigeria. People were freely expressing their opinions both offline and online on this issue and demanding for a reform of the Nigerian Police Force. These incidents have helped shape my views on how important the right to free speech is in any given society considering that it gives everyone an avenue to hold the government accountable, demand for justice, as well as share their views about how they feel about certain issues that affect them as an individual or group.  

 York: I know you work a bit on press freedom in Nigeria and across Africa. Can you tell me a bit about the situation for press freedom in the context in which you’re working?

 The situation for press freedom in Africa—and particularly Nigeria—is currently an eye sore. The legal and political environment is becoming repressive against press freedom and freedom of expression as governments across the region are now posing themselves as authoritarian. And they have been making several efforts to gag the media by enacting draconian laws, arresting and arbitrarily detaining journalists, imposing fines, and closing media outlets, amongst many other actions.

In my country, Nigeria, the government has resorted to using laws like the Cybercrime Act of 2015 and the Criminal Code Act, among other laws, to silence journalists who are either exposing their corrupt practices, sharing dissenting views, or holding them accountable to the people. For instance, journalists like Agba Jalingo, Ayodele Samuel, Emmanuel Ojo and Dare Akogun – just to mention a few who have been arrested, detained, or charged to court under these laws. In the case of Agba Jalingo, he was arrested and detained for over 100 days after he exposed the corrupt practices of the Governor of Cross River, a state in Nigeria.

 The case is the same in many African countries including Benin, Ghana, and Senegal. Journalists are arrested, detained, and sent to court for performing their journalistic duty. Ignace Sossou, a journalist in Benin, was sent to court and imprisoned under the Digital Code for posting the statement of the Minister of justice  on his Facebook’s account. The reality right now is that governments across the region are at war against press freedom and journalists who are purveyors of information.

 Although this is what press freedom looks like across the region, civil society organizations are fighting back to protect press freedom and freedom of  expression.  To create an enabling environment for press freedom, my organization, Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has been making several efforts such as instituting lawsuits before the national and regional courts challenging these draconian laws; providing pro bono legal representation to journalists who are arrested, detained, or charged; and engaging various stakeholders on this issue. 

 York: Are you working on the issue of online regulation and can you tell us the situation of online speech in the region?

 As the Head of Legal with MRA, I am actively working around the issue of online regulation to ensure that the rights to press freedom, freedom of expression, access to information, and digital rights are promoted and protected online. The region is facing an era of digital authoritarianism as there is a crackdown on online speech. In the context of my country, the Nigerian Government has made several attempts to regulate the internet or introduce social media bills under the guise of combating cybercrimes, hate speech, and mis/disinformation. However, diverse stakeholders – including civil society organizations like my organization – have, on many occasions, fought against these attempts to regulate online speech for the reason that these proposed bills will not only limit freedom of expression, press freedom, and other digital rights. They will also shrink the civic space online, as some of their provisions are overly broad and governments are known for using laws like this arbitrarily to silence dissenting voices and witch hunt journalists, opposition entities, or individuals.

 An example is when diverse stakeholders challenged the National Information and Technology Development Agency (NITDA), an agency saddled with the duty of creating a framework for the planning and regulation of information technology practices activities and systems in Nigeria over the draft regulation, “Code of Practices for Interactive Computer Service Platforms/Internet Intermediaries.” They challenged the draft regulation on the basis that it must contain some provisions that recognize freedom of expression, privacy, press freedom and other human rights concerns. Although the agency took into consideration some of the suggestions made by these stakeholders, there are still concerns that individuals, activists, and human rights defenders might be surveilled, amongst other things.

 The government of Nigeria is relying on laws like the Cybercrime Act, Criminal Code Act and many more to stifle online speech. And the Ghanaian government is no different as they are also relying on the Electronic Communication Act to suppress freedom of expression and hound critical journalists under the pretense of battling fake news. Countries like Zimbabwe, Sudan, Uganda, and Morocco have also enacted laws to silence dissent and repress citizens’ internet use especially for expression.

 York: Can you also tell me a little bit more about the landscape for civil society where you work? Are there any creative tactics or strategies from civil society that you work with?

 Nigeria is home to a wide variety of civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The main legislation that regulates CSOs are federal laws such as the Nigerian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of association, and the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), which provides every group or association with legal personality.

 CSOs in Nigeria face quite a number of legal and political hurdles. For example, CSOs that wish to operate as a company limited by guarantee need to seek the consent of the Attorney-General of the Federation which may be rejected. While CSOs operating as incorporated trustees are mandated to carry out some obligations which can be tedious and time consuming. On several occasions, the Nigerian Government has made attempts to pressure and even subvert CSOs and to single out certain CSOs for special adverse treatment. Despite receiving foreign funding support, the Nigerian government finds it convenient to berate or criticize CSOs as being “sponsored” by foreign interests, with the underlying suggestion that such organizations are unpatriotic and – by criticizing government – are being paid to act contrary to Nigeria’s interests.

 There are lots of strategies or tactics CSOs are using to address the issues they are working on, including issuing press statements, engaging diverse stakeholders, litigation, capacity-building efforts, and advocacy.  

 York: Do you have a free expression hero?

 Yes, I do. All the critical journalists out there are my free expression heroes. I also consider Julian Assange as a free speech hero for his belief in openness and transparency as well as taking personal risk to expose the corrupt acts of the powerful, an act necessary in a democratic society. 

Lynn Hamadallah is a Syrian-Palestinian-French Psychologist based in London. An outspoken voice for the Palestinian cause, Lynn is interested in the ways in which narratives, spoken and unspoken, shape identity. Having lived in five countries and spent a lot of time traveling, she takes a global perspective on freedom of expression. Her current research project investigates how second-generation British-Arabs negotiate their cultural identity. Lynn works in a community mental health service supporting some of London's most disadvantaged residents, many of whom are migrants who have suffered extensive psychological trauma.

York: What does free speech or free expression mean to you? 

Being Arab and coming from a place where there is much more speech policing in the traditional sense, I suppose there is a bit of an idealization of Western values of free speech and democracy. There is this sense of freedom we grow up associating with the West. Yet recently, we’ve come to realize that the way it works in practice is quite different to the way it is described, and this has led to a lot of disappointment and disillusionment in the West and its ideals amongst Arabs. There’s been a lot of censorship for example on social media, which I’ve experienced myself when posting content in support of Palestine. At a national level, we have witnessed the dehumanization going on around protesters in the UK, which undermines the idea of free speech. For example, the pro-Palestine protests where we saw the then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman referring to protesters as “hate marchers.” So we’ve come to realize there’s this kind of veneer of free speech in the West which does not really match up to the more idealistic view of freedom we were taught about.

With the increased awareness we have gained as a result of the latest aggression going on in Palestine, actually what we’re learning is that free speech is just another arm of the West to support political and racist agendas. It’s one of those things that the West has come up with which only applies to one group of people and oppresses another. It’s the same as with human rights you know - human rights for who? Where are Palestinian’s human rights? 

We’ve seen free speech being weaponized to spread hate and desecrate Islam, for example, in the case of Charlie Hebdo and the Quran burning in Denmark and in Sweden. The argument put forward was that those cases represented instances of free speech rather than hate speech. But actually to millions of Muslims around the world those incidents were very, very hateful. They were acts of violence not just against their religious beliefs but right down to their sense of self. It’s humiliating to have a part of your identity targeted in that way with full support from the West, politicians and citizens alike. 

And then, when we— we meaning Palestinians and Palestine allies—want to leverage this idea of free speech to speak up against the oppression happening by the state of Israel, we see time and time again accusations flying around: hate speech, anti-semitism, and censorship. Heavy, heavy censorship everywhere. So that’s what I mean when I say that free speech in the West is a racist concept, actually. And I don’t know that true free speech exists anywhere in the world really. In the Middle East we don’t have democracies but at least there’s no veneer of democracy— the messaging and understanding is clear. Here, we have a supposed democracy, but in practice it looks very different. And that’s why, for me, I don’t really believe that free speech exists. I’ve never seen a real example of it. I think as long as people are power hungry there’s going to be violence, and as long as there’s violence, people are going to want to hide their crimes. And as long as people are trying to hide their crimes there’s not going to be free speech. Sorry for the pessimistic view!

York: It’s okay, I understand where you’re coming from. And I think that a lot of those things are absolutely true. Yet, from my perspective, I still think it’s a worthy goal even though governments—and organizationally we’ve seen this as well—a lot of times governments do try to abuse this concept. So I guess then I would just as a follow-up, do you feel that despite these issues that some form of universalized free expression is still a worthy ideal? 

Of course, I think it’s a worthy ideal. You know, even with social media – there is censorship. I’ve experienced it and it’s not just my word and an isolated incident. It’s been documented by Human Rights Watch—even Meta themselves! They did an internal investigation in 2021—Meta had a nonprofit called Business for Social Responsibility do an investigation and produce a report—and they’ve shown there was systemic censorship of Palestine-related content. And they’re doing it again now. That being said, I do think social media is making free speech more accessible, despite the censorship. 

And I think—to your question—free speech is absolutely worth pursuing. Because we see that despite these attempts at censorship, the truth is starting to come out. Palestine support is stronger than it’s ever been. To the point where we’ve now had South Africa take Israel to trial at the International Court of Justice for genocide, using evidence from social media videos that went viral. So what I’m saying is, free speech has the power to democratize demanding accountability from countries and creating social change, so yes, absolutely something we should try to pursue. 

York: You just mentioned two issues close to my heart. One is the issues around speech on social media platforms, and I’ve of course followed and worked on the Palestinian campaigns quite closely and I’m very aware of the BSR report. But also, video content, specifically, that’s found on social media being used in tribunals. So let me shift this question a bit. You have such a varied background around the world. I’m curious about your perspective over the past decade or decade and a half since social media has become so popular—how do you feel social media has shaped people’s views or their ability to advocate for themselves globally? 

So when we think about stories and narratives, something I’m personally interested in, we have to think about which stories get told and which stories remain untold. These stories and their telling is very much controlled by the mass media— BBC, CNN, and the like. They control the narrative. And I guess what social media is doing is it’s giving a voice to those who are often voiceless. In the past, the issue was that there was such a monopoly over mouthpieces. Mass  media were so trusted, to the point where no one would have paid attention to these alternative viewpoints. But what social media has done… I think it’s made people become more aware or more critical of mass media and how it shapes public opinion. There’s been a lot of exposure of their failure for example, like that video that went viral of Egyptian podcaster and activist Rahma Zain confronting CNN’s Clarissa Ward at the Rafah border about their biased reporting of the genocide in Palestine. I think that confrontation spoke to a lot of people. She was shouting “ You own the narrative, this is our problem. You own the narrative, you own the United Nations, you own Hollywood, you own all these mouthpieces— where are our voices?! Our voices need to be heard!” It was SO powerful and that video really spoke to the sentiment of many Arabs who have felt angry, betrayed and abandoned by the West’s ideals and their media reporting.

Social media is providing  a voice to more diverse people, elevating them and giving the public more control around narratives. Another example we’ve seen recently is around what’s currently happening in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These horrific events and stories would never have had much of a voice or exposure before at the global stage. And now people all over the world are paying more attention and advocating for Sudanese and Congolese rights, thanks to social media. 

I personally was raised with quite a critical view of mass media, I think in my family there was a general distrust of the West, their policies and their media, so I never really relied personally on the media as this beacon of truth, but I do think that’s an exception. I think the majority of people rely on mass media as their source of truth. So social media plays an important role in keeping them accountable and diversifying narratives.

York: What are some of the biggest challenges you see right now anywhere in the world in terms of the climate for free expression for Palestinian and other activism? 

I think there’s two strands to it. There’s the social media strand. And there’s the governmental policies and actions. So I think on social media, again, it’s very documented, but it’s this kind of constant censorship. People want to be able to share content that matters to them, to make people more aware of global issues and we see time and time again viewership going down, content being deleted or reports from Meta of alleged hate speech or antisemitism. And that’s really hard. There’ve been random strategies that have popped up to increase social media engagement, like posting random content unrelated to Palestine or creating Instagram polls for example. I used to do that, I interspersed Palestine content with random polls like, “What’s your favorite color?” just to kind of break up the Palestine content and boost my engagement. And it was honestly so exhausting. It was like… I’m watching a genocide in real time, this is an attack on my people and now I’m having to come up with silly polls? Eventually I just gave up and accepted my viewership as it was, which was significantly lower.

At a government level, which is the other part of it, there’s this challenge of constant intimidation that we’re witnessing. I just saw recently there was a 17-year-old boy who was interviewed by the counterterrorism police at an airport because he was wearing a Palestinian flag. He was interrogated about his involvement in a Palestinian protest. When has protesting become a crime and what does that say about democratic rights and free speech here in the UK? And this is one example, but there are so many examples of policing, there was even talk of banning protests all together at one point. 

The last strand I’d include, actually, that I already touched on, is the mass media. Just recently we’ve seen the BBC reporting on the ICJ hearing, they showed the Israeli defense part, but they didn’t even show the South African side. So this censorship is literally in plain sight and poses a real challenge to the climate of free expression for Palestine activism.

York: Who is your free speech hero? 

Off the top of my head I’d probably say Mohammed El-Kurd. I think he’s just been so unapologetic in his stance. Not only that but I think he’s also made us think critically about this idea of narrative and what stories get told. I think it was really powerful when he was arguing the need to stop giving the West and mass media this power, and that we need to disempower them by ceasing to rely on them as beacons of truth, rather than working on changing them. Because, as he argues, oppressors who have monopolized and institutionalized violence will never ever tell the truth or hold themselves to account. Instead, we need to turn to Palestinians, and to brave cultural workers, knowledge producers, academics, journalists, activists, and social media commentators who understand the meaning of oppression and view them as the passionate, angry and, most importantly, reliable narrators that they are.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.*

Mary Aileen Diez-Bacalso is the executive director of FORUM-Asia. She has worked for many years in human rights organizations in the Philippines and internationally, and is best known for her work on enforced disappearances. She has received several human rights awards at home and abroad, including the Emilio F. Mignone International Human Rights Prize conferred by the Government of Argentina and the Franco-German Ministerial Prize for Human Rights and Rule of Law. In addition to her work at FORUM-Asia, she currently serves as the president of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED) and is a senior lecturer at the Asian Center of the University of the Philippines.

York: What does free expression mean to you? And can you tell me about an experience, or experiences, that shaped your views on free expression?

To me, free speech or free expression means the exercise of the right to express oneself and to seek and receive information as an individual or an organization. I’m an individual, but I’m also representing an organization, so it means the ability to express thoughts, ideas, or opinions without threats or intimidation or fear of reprisals. 

Free speech is expressed in various avenues, such as in a community where one lives or in an organization where one belongs at the national, regional, or international levels. It is the right to express these ideas, opinions, and thoughts for different purposes, for instance; influencing behaviors, opinions, and policy decisions; giving education; addressing, for example, historical revisionism—which is historically common in my country, the Philippines. Without freedom of speech people will be kept in the dark in terms of access to information, in understanding and analyzing information, and deciding which information to believe and which information is incorrect or inaccurate or is meant to misinform people. So without freedom of speech people cannot exercise their other basic human rights, like the right of suffrage and, for example, religious organizations who are preaching will not be able to fulfill their mission of preaching if freedom of speech is curtailed. 

I have worked for years with families of the disappeared—victims of enforced disappearance—in many countries. And this forced disappearance is a consequence of the absence of free speech. These disappeared people are forcibly disappeared because of their political beliefs, because of their political affiliations, and because of their human rights work, among other things. And they were deprived of the right to speech. Additionally, in the Philippines and many other Asian countries, rallies, for example, and demonstrations on various legitimate issues of the people are being dispersed by security forces in the name of peace. That’s depriving legitimate protesters from the rights to speech and to peaceful assembly. So these people are named as enemies of the state, as subversives, as troublemakers, and in the process they’re tear-gassed, arrested, detained, etcetera. So allowing these people to exercise their constitutional rights is a manifestation of free speech. But in many Asian countries—and many other countries in other regions also—such rights, although provided for by the Constitution, are not respected. Free speech in whatever country you are in, wherever you go, is freedom to study the situation of that country to give your opinion of that situation and share your ideas with others. 

York: Can you share some experiences that helped shape your views on freedom of expression? 

During my childhood years, when martial law was imposed, I’d heard a lot of news about detention, arrest and detention of journalists because of their protest against martial law that was imposed by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Sr, who was the father of the present President of the Philippines. So I read a lot about violations of human rights of activists from different sectors of society. I read about farmers, workers, students, church people, who were arrested, detained, tortured, disappeared, and killed because of martial law. Because they spoke against the Marcos administration. So during those years when I was so young, this actually formed my mind and also my commitment to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association. 

Once, I was arrested during the first Marcos administration, and that was a very long time ago. That is a manifestation of the curtailment of the right of free speech. I was together with other human rights defenders—I was very young at the time. We were rallying because there was a priest who was made to disappear forcibly. So we were arrested and detained. Also, I was deported by the government of India on my way to Kashmir. I was there three times, but on my third time I was not allowed to go to Kashmir because of our human rights work there. So even now, I am banned in India and I can not go back there. It was because of those reports we made on enforced disappearances and mass graves in Kashmir. So free speech means freedom without thread, intimidation, or retaliation. And it means being able to use all avenues in various contexts to speak in whatever forms—verbal speeches, written speeches, videos, and all forms of communication.

Also, the enforced disappearance of my husband informed my views on free expression. Two weeks after we got married he was briefly forcibly disappeared. He was tortured, he was not fed, and he was forced to confess that he was a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He was together with one other person he did not know and did not see, and they were forced to dig a grave for themselves to be buried alive inside. Another person who was disappeared then escaped and informed us of where my husband was. So we told the military that we knew where my husband was. They were afraid that the other person might testify so they released my husband in a cemetery near his parent’s house.

And that made an impact on me, that’s why I work a lot with families of enforced disappearances both in the Philippines and in many other countries. I believe that the experience of enforced disappearance of my husband, and other family members of the disappeared and their experience of having family members disappeared until now, is a consequence of the violation of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech. And also my integration or immersion with families of the disappeared has contributed a lot to my commitment to human rights and free speech. I’m just lucky to have my husband back. And he’s lucky. But the way of giving back, of being grateful for the experience we had—because they are very rare cases where victims of enforced disappearances surfaced alive—so I dedicate my whole life to the cause of human rights. 

York: What do you feel are some of the qualities that make you passionate about protecting free expression for others?

Being brought up by my family, my parents, we were taught about the importance of speaking for the truth, and the importance of uprightness. It was also because of our religious background. We were taught it is very important to tell the truth. So this passion for truth and uprightness is one of the qualities that make me passionate about free expression. And the sense of moral responsibility to rectify wrongs that are being committed. My love of writing, also. I love writing whenever I have the opportunity to do it, the time to do it. And the sense of duty to make human rights a lifetime commitment. 

York: What should we know about the role of social media in modern Philippine society? 

I believe social media contributed a lot to what we are now. The current oppressive administration invested a lot in misinformation, in revising history, and that’s why a lot of young people think of martial law as the years of glory and prosperity. I believe one of the biggest factors of the administration getting the votes was their investment in social media for at least a decade. 

York: What are your feelings on how online speech should be regulated? 

I’m not very sure it should be regulated. For me, as long as the individuals or the organizations have a sense of responsibility for what they say online, there should be no regulation. But when we look at free speech on online platforms these online platforms have the responsibility to ensure that there are clear guidelines for content moderation and must be held accountable for content posted on their platforms. So fact-checking—which is so important in this world of misinformation and “fake news”—and complaints mechanisms have to be in place to ensure that harmful online speech is identified and addressed. So while freedom of expression is a fundamental right, it is important to recognize that this can be exploited to spread hate speech and harmful content all in the guise of online freedom of speech—so this could be abused. This is being abused. Those responsible for online platforms must be accountable for their content. For example, from March 2020 to July 2020 our organization, FORUM-Asia and its partners, including freedom of expression group AFAD, documented around 40 cases of hate speech and dangerous speech on Facebook. And the study scope is limited as it only covered posts and comments in Burmese. The researchers involved also reported that many other posts were reported and subsequently removed prior to being documented. So the actual amount of hate speech is likely to be significantly higher. I recommend taking a look at the report. So while FORUM-Asia acknowledges the efforts of Facebook to promote policies to curb hate speech on the platform, it still needs to update and constantly review all these things, like the community guidelines, including those on political advertisements and paid or sponsored content, with the participation of the Facebook Oversight Board. 

York: Can you tell me about a personal experience you’ve had with censorship, or perhaps the opposite, an experience you have of using freedom of expression for the greater good?

In terms of censorship, I don’t have personal experience with censorship. I wrote some opinion pieces in the Union of Catholic Asian News and other online platforms, but I haven’t had any experience of censorship. Although I did experience negative comments because of the content of what I wrote. There are a lot of trolls in the Philippines and they were and are very supportive of the previous administration of Duterte, so there was negative feedback when I wrote a lot on the war on drugs and the killings and impunity. But that’s also part of freedom of speech! I just had to ignore it, but, to be honest, I felt bad. 

York: Thank you for sharing that. Do you have a free expression hero? 

I believe we have so many unsung heroes in terms of free speech and these are the unknown persecuted human rights defenders. But I also answer that during this week we are commemorating the Holy Week [editor’s note: this interview took place on March 28, 2024] so I would like to say that I would like to remember Jesus Christ. Whose passion, death, and resurrection Christians are commemorating this week. So, during his time, Jesus spoke about the ills of society, he was enraged when he witnessed how defenseless poor were violated of their rights and he was angry when authority took advantage of them. And he spoke very openly about his anger, about his defense for the poor. So I believe that he is my hero.

Also, in contemporary times, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, who was canonized as a Saint in 2018, I consider him as my free speech hero also. I visited the chapel where he was assassinated, the Cathedral of San Salvador, where his mortal remains were buried. And the international community, especially the Salvadoran people, celebrated the 44th anniversary of his assassination last Sunday the 24th of March, 2024. Seeing the ills of society, the consequent persecution of the progressive segment of the Catholic church and the churches in El Salvador, and the indiscriminate killings of the Salvadoran people in his communities San Romero courageously spoke on the eve of his assassination. I’d like to quote what he said. He said:

“I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.”

So as a fitting tribute to Saint Romero of the Americas the United Nations has dedicated the 24th of March as the International Day for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-repetition. So he is my hero. Of course, Jesus Christ being the most courageous human rights defender during these times, continues to be my hero. Which I’m sure was the model of Monsignor Romero. 

Emma Shapiro is an American artist, writer, and activist who is based in Valencia, Spain. She is the Editor-At-Large for the Don’t Delete Art campaign and the founder of the international art project and movement Exposure Therapy. Her work includes the use of video, collage, performance, and photography, while primarily using her own body and image. Through her use of layered video projection, self portraiture, and repeated encounters with her own image, Emma deconstructs and questions the meaning of our bodies, how we know them, and what they could be.

Regular censorship of her artwork online and IRL has driven Emma to dedicate herself to advocacy for freedom of expression. Emma sat down with EFF’s Jillian York to discuss the need for greater protection of artistic expression across platforms, how the adult body is regulated in the digital world, the role of visual artists as defenders of cultural and digital rights, and more.

York: What does free expression mean to you?

Free expression, to me, as primarily an artist—I’ve now also become an arts writer and an advocate for artistry things including censorship and suppression online of those who make art —but, primarily, I’m an artist. So for me free expression is my own ability to make my work and see the artwork of others. That is what is, baseline, the most important thing to me. And whenever I encounter obstacles to those things is when I know I’m facing issues with free expression. Besides that, how free we are to express ourselves is kind of the barometer for what kind of society we’re living in.

York: Can you tell me about an experience that shaped your views on freedom of expression?

The first times I encountered suppression and erasure of my own art work, which is probably the most pivotal moment that I personally had that shaped my views around this in that I became indignant and that led me down a path of meeting other artists and other people who were expressing themselves and facing the exact same problem. Especially in the online space. The way it operates is, if you’re being censored, you’re being suppressed. You’re effectively not being seen. So unless you’re seeking out this conversation – and that’s usually because it’s happened to you – you’re easily not going to encounter this problem. You’re not going to be able to interact with the creators this is happening to.

That was a completely ground-shifting and important experience for me when I first started experiencing this kind of suppression and erasure of my artwork online. I’ve always experienced misunderstanding of my work and I usually chalked that up to a puritan mindset or sexism in that I use my own body in my artwork. Even though I’m not dealing with sexual themes – I’m not even dealing with feminist themes – those topics are unavoidable as soon as you use a body. Especially a female-presenting body in your artwork. As soon as I started posting my artwork online that was when the experience of censorship became absolutely clear to me.

York: Tell me about your project Exposure Therapy. We’ve both done a lot of work around how female-presenting bodies are allowed to exist on social media platforms. I would love to hear your take on this and what brought you to that project. 

I’d be happy to talk about Exposure Therapy! Exposure Therapy came out of one of the first major instances of censorship that I experienced. Which was something that happened in real life. It happened at a WalMart in rural Virginia where I couldn’t get my work printed. They threatened me with the police and they destroyed my artwork in front of me. The reason they gave me was that it showed nipples. So I decided to put my nipples everywhere. Because I was like… this is so arbitrary. If I put my nipple on my car is my car now illicit and sexy or whatever you’re accusing me of? So that’s how Exposure Therapy started. It started as a physical offline intervention. And it was just my own body that I was using. 

Then when I started an Instagram account to explore it a little further I, of course, faced online censorship of the female-presenting nipple. And so it became a more complex conversation after that. Because the online space and how we judge bodies online was a deep and confusing world. I ended up meeting a lot of other activists online who are dealing with the same topic and incorporating other bodies into the project. Out of that, I’ve grown nearly everything I’ve done since as having to do with online spaces, the censorship of bodies, and particularly censorship of female-presenting bodies. And it’s been an extremely rewarding experience. It’s been very interesting to monitor the temperature shifts over the last few years since I began the project, and to see how some things have remained the same. I mean, even when I go out and discuss the topic of censorship of the female-presenting nipple, the baseline understanding people often have is they think that female nipples are genitalia and they’re embarrassed by them. And that’s a lot of people in the world – even people who would attend a lecture of mine feel that way!

York: If you were to be the CEO of a social media platform tomorrow how would you construct the rules when it comes to the human body? 

When it comes to the adult human body. The adult consenting human body. I’m interested more in user choice in online spaces and social media platforms. I like the idea of me, as a user, going into a space with the ability to determine what I don’t want to see or what I do want to see. Instead of the space dictating what’s allowed to be on the space in the first place. And I also am interested in some models that I’ve seen where the artist or the person posting the content is labeling the images themselves, like self-tagging. And those tags end up creating their own sub-tags. And that is very interactive – it could be a much more interactive and user-experience based space rather than the way social media is operating right now which is completely dictated from the top down. There basically is no user choice now. There might be some toggles that you can say that you want to see or that you don’t want to see “sensitive content,” but they’re still the ones labeling what “sensitive content” is. I’m mostly interested in the user choice aspect. Lips social media run by Annie Brown I find to be a fascinating experiment. Something that she is proving is that there is a space that can be created that is LGBTQ and feminist-focused where it does put the user first. It puts the creator first. And there’s a sort of social contract that you’re a part of being in that space. 

York: Let me ask you about the Don’t Delete Art Campaign. What prompted that and what’s been a success story from that campaign?

I’m not a founding member of Don’t Delete Art. My fellow co-curators, Spencer Tunick and Savannah Spirit, were there in the very beginning when this was created with NCAC (National Coalition Against Censorship) and Freemuse and ARC (Artists at Risk Connection), and there were also some others involved at the beginning. But now it is those three organizations and three of us artists/ activists. Since its inception in 2020, I believe, or the end of 2019, we had seen a shift in the way that certain things were happening at Meta. We mostly are dealing with Meta platforms because they’re mostly image-based. Of course there are things that happen on other social media platforms, but visual artists are usually using these visual platforms. So most of our work has had to do with Meta platforms, previously Facebook platforms.

And since the inception of Don’t Delete Art we actually have seen shifts in the way that they deal with the appeals processes and the way that there might be more nuance in how lens-based work is assessed. We can’t necessarily claim those as victories because no one has told us, “This is thanks to you, Don’t Delete Art, that we made this change!” Of course, they’re never going to do that. But we’re pretty confident that our input – our contact with them, the data that we gathered to give them – helps them hear a little more of our artistic perspectives and integrate that into their content moderation design. So that’s a win.

For me personally, since I came on board – and I’m the Editor at Large of Don’t Delete Art – I have been very pleased with our interaction with artists and other groups including digital rights groups and free expression groups who really value what we do. And that we are able to collaborate with them, take part in events that they’re doing, and spread the message of Don’t Delete Art. And just let artists know that when this happens to them – this suppression or censorship – they’re not alone. Because it’s an extremely isolating situation. People feel ashamed. It’s hard to know you’re now inaugurated into a community when this happens to you. So I feel like that’s a win. The more I can educate my own community, the artist community, on this issue and advance the conversation and advance the cause.

York: What would you say to someone who says nudity isn’t one of the most important topics in the discussion around content moderation?

That is something that I encounter a lot. And basically it’s that there’s a lot of aspects to being an artist online—and then especially an artist who uses the body online—that faces suppression and censorship that people tend to think our concerns are frivolous. This also goes hand in hand with  the “free the nipple” movement and body equality. People tend to look upon those conversations—especially when they’re online—as being frivolous secondary concerns. And what I have to say to that is… my body is your body. If my body is not considered equal for any reason at all and not given the respect it deserves then no body is equal. It doesn’t matter what context it’s in. It doesn’t matter if I’m using my body or using the topic of female nipples or me as an artist. The fact that art using the body is so suppressed online means that there’s a whole set of artists who just aren’t being seen, who are unable to access the same kinds of tools as other artists who choose a different medium. And the medium that we choose to express ourselves with shouldn’t be subject to those kinds of restrictions. It shouldn’t be the case that artists have to change their entire practice just to get access to the same tools that other artists have. Which has happened. 

Many artists, myself included, [and] Savannah Spirit, especially, speak to this: people have changed their entire practice or they don’t show entire bodies of work or they even stop creating because they’re facing suppression and censorship and even harassment online. And that extends to the offline space. If a gallery is showing an artist who faces censorship online, they would be less likely to include that artist’s work in their promotional material where they might have otherwise. Or, if they do host that artist’s work and the gallery faces suppression and censorship of their presence online because of that artist’s work, then in the future they might choose not to work with an artist who works with the body. Then we’re losing an entire field of art in which people are discussing body politics and identity and ancestry and everything that has to do with the body. I mean there’s a reason artists are working with the body. It’s important commentary, an important tool, and important visibility. 

York: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your work that I haven’t asked you about? 

I do want to have the opportunity to say that—and it relates to the way people might not take some artists seriously or take this issue seriously—and I think that extends to the digital rights conversation and artists. I think it’s a conversation that isn’t being had in art communities. But it’s something that affects visual artists completely. Visual artists aren’t necessarily—well, it’s hard to group us as a community because we don’t have unions for ourselves, it’s a pretty individualistic practice, obviously—but artists don’t tend to realize that they are cultural rights defenders. And that they need to step in and occupy their digital rights space. Digital rights conversations very rarely include the topic of visual art. For example, the Santa Clara Principles is a very important document that doesn’t mention visual art at all. And that’s a both sides problem. That artists don’t recognize the importance of digital art in their practice, and digital rights groups don’t realize that they should be inviting visual artists to the table. So in my work, especially in the writing I do for arts journals, I have very specifically focused on and tried to call this out. That artists need to step into the digital rights space and realize this is a conversation that needs to be had in our own community.

York: That is a fantastic call to action to have in this interview, thank you. Now my final question- who, if anyone, is your free expression hero?

I feel somewhat embarrassed by it because it comes from a very naive place, but when I was a young kid I saw Ragtime on Broadway and Emma Goldman became my icon as a very young child. And of course I was drawn to her probably because we have the same name! Just her character in the show, and then learning about her life, became very influential to me. I just loved the idea of a strong woman spending her life and her energy advocating for people, activating people, motivating people to fight for their rights and make sure the world is a more equal place. And that has always been a sort of model in my mind and it’s never really gone away. I feel like I backed into what I’m doing now and ended up being where I want to be. Because I, of course, pursued art and I didn’t anticipate that I would be encountering this issue. I didn’t anticipate that I’d become part of the Don’t Delete Campaign, I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t set out for that. I just always had Emma Goldman in the back of my mind as this strong female figure whose life was dedicated to free speech and equality. So that’s my biggest icon. But it also is one that I had as a very young kid who didn’t know much about the world. 

York: Those are the icons that shape us! Thank you so much for this interview. 

EFF welcomes the latest and long-awaited policy advisory opinion from Meta’s Oversight Board calling on the company to end its blanket ban on the use of the Arabic-language term “shaheed” when referring to individuals listed under Meta’s policy on dangerous organizations and individuals and calls on Meta to fully implement the Board’s recommendations.

Since the Meta Oversight Board was created in 2020 as an appellate body designed to review select contested content moderation decisions made by Meta, we’ve watched with interest as the Board has considered a diverse set of cases and issued expert opinions aimed at reshaping Meta’s policies. While our views on the Board's efficacy in creating long-term policy change have been mixed, we have been happy to see the Board issue policy recommendations that seek to maximize free expression on Meta properties.

The policy advisory opinion, issued Tuesday, addresses posts referring to individuals as 'shaheed' an Arabic term that closely (though not exactly) translates to 'martyr,' when those same individuals have previously been designated by Meta as 'dangerous' under its dangerous organizations and individuals policy. The Board found that Meta’s approach to moderating content that contains the term to refer to individuals who are designated by the company’s policy on “dangerous organizations and individuals”—a policy that covers both government-proscribed organizations and others selected by the company— substantially and disproportionately restricts free expression.

The Oversight Board first issued a call for comment in early 2023, and in April of last year, EFF partnered with the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) to submit comment for the Board’s consideration. In our joint comment, we wrote:

The automated removal of words such as ‘shaheed’ fail to meet the criteria for restricting users’ right to freedom of expression. They not only lack necessity and proportionality and operate on shaky legal grounds (if at all), but they also fail to ensure access to remedy and violate Arabic-speaking users’ right to non-discrimination.

In addition to finding that Meta’s current approach to moderating such content restricts free expression, the Board noted thate importance of any restrictions on freedom of expression that seek to prevent violence must be necessary and proportionate, “given that undue removal of content may be ineffective and even counterproductive.”

We couldn’t agree more. We have long been concerned about the impact of corporate policies and government regulations designed to limit violent extremist content on human rights and evidentiary content, as well as journalism and art. We have worked directly with companies and with multi stakeholder initiatives such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, Tech Against Terrorism, and the Christchurch Call to ensure that freedom of expression remains a core part of policymaking.

In its policy recommendation, the Board acknowledges the importance of Meta’s ability to take action to ensure its platforms are not used to incite violence or recruit people to engage in violence, and that the term “shaheed” is sometimes used by extremists “to praise or glorify people who have died while committing violent terrorist acts.” However, the Board also emphasizes that Meta’s response to such threats must be guided by respect for all human rights, including freedom of expression. Notably, the Board’s opinion echoes our previous demands for policy changes, as well as those of the Stop Silencing Palestine campaign initiated by nineteen digital and human rights organizations, including EFF.

We call on Meta to implement the Board’s recommendations and ensure that future policies and practices respect freedom of expression.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Robert Ssempala is a longtime press freedom and social justice advocate. He serves as Executive Director at Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a network of journalists in Uganda working towards enhancing the promotion, protection, and respect of human rights through defending and building the capacities of journalists, to effectively exercise their constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms for collective campaigning through the media. Under his leadership, his organization has supported hundreds of journalists who have been assaulted, imprisoned, and targeted in the course of their work. 

 York: What does free speech or free expression mean to you?

 It means being able to give one’s opinions and ideas freely without fear of reprisals or without fearing facing criminal sanctions, and without being concerned about how another feels about their ideas or opinions. Sometimes even if it’s offensive, it’s one’s opinion. For me, it’s entirely how one wants to express themselves that is all about having the liberty to speak freely.

 York: What are the qualities that make you passionate about free expression?

 For me, it is the light for everyone when they’re able to give their ideas and opinions. It is having a sense of liberty to have an idea. I am very passionate about listening to ideas, about everyone getting to speak what they feel is right. The qualities that make me passionate about it are that, first, I’m from a media background. So, during that time I learned that we are going to receive the people’s ideas and opinions, disseminate them to the wider public, and there will be feedback from the public about what has come out from one side to the other. And that quality is so dear to my heart. And second, it is a sense of freedom that is expressed at all levels, in any part of the country or the world, being the people’s eyes and ears, especially at their critical times of need.

 York: I want to ask you more about Uganda. Can you give us a short overview of what the situation for speech is like in the country right now?

 The climate in Uganda is partly free and partly not free, depending on the nature of the issues at hand. Those that touch civil and political rights are very highly restricted and it has attracted so many reprisals for those that seek to express themselves that way. I work for the Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda (HRNJ-Uganda) which is a non-governmental media rights organization, so we monitor and document annually the incidents, trends, and patterns touching freedom of expression and journalists’ rights. Most of the cases that we have received, documented, and worked on are stemming from civil and political rights. We receive less of those that touch economic, social, and cultural rights. So depending on where you’re standing, those media houses and journalists that are critically independent and venture into investigative practices are highly targeted. They have been attacked physically, their gadgets have been confiscated and sometimes even damaged deliberately. Some have lost their jobs under duress because a majority of media ownership in this country is by the political class or lean toward the ruling political party. As such, they want to be seen to be supportive of the regime, so they kind of tighten the noose on all freedom of expression spaces within media houses and prevail over their journalists. This by any measure has led to heightened self-censorship.

 But also, those journalists that seem to take critical lines are targeted. Some are even blacklisted. We can say that from the looks of things that times around political campaigns and elections are the tightest for freedom of expression in this country, and most cases have been reported around such times. We normally have elections every five years. So every three years after an election electioneering starts. And that’s when we see a lot of restrictions coming from the government through its regulation bodies like the Uganda Communications Commission, which is the communications regulator in my country. Also from the Media Council of Uganda, which was put in place by an act of Parliament to oversee the practices of media. And from the police or security apparatus in this country. So it’s a very fragile environment within which to practice. The journalists operate under immense fear and there are very high levels of censorship. The law has increasingly been used to criminalize free speech. That’s how I’d describe the current environment.

 York: I understand that the Computer Misuse Act as well as cybercrime legislation have been used to target journalists. Have you or any of your clients experienced censorship through abuse of computer crime laws?

 We have a very Draconian law called the Computer Misuse Amendment Act. It was amended just last year to make it even worse. It has been now the walking stick of the proponents of the regime that don’t want to be subjected to public scrutiny, that don’t want to be held accountable politically in their offices. So abuses of public trust and power of their offices are hidden under the Computer Misuse Amendment Act. And most journalists, most editors, most managers have been, from time to time, interrogated at the Criminal Investigations Directorate of the police over what they have written about the powerful personalities especially in the political class – sometimes even from the business class – but mainly it’s from the political class. So it is used to insulate the powerful from being held accountable. Sadly, most of these cases are politically motivated. Most of them have not even ended up in courts of law, but have been used to open up charges against the media practitioners who have, from time to time, kept reporting and answering to the police for a long time without being presented to court or that are presented at a time when they realize that the journalists in question are becoming a bit unruly. So these laws are used to contain the journalists.

 Since most of the stories that have been at the highlight of the regime have been factual, they have not had reason to run to Court, but the effect of this is very counterproductive to the journalists’ independence, to their ability to concentrate on more stories – because they’re always thinking about these cases pending before them. Also, media houses now become very fearful and learn how to behave to not be in many cases of that nature. So the Computer Misuse Act, criminal defamation and now the most recent one, the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA) – which was passed by Parliament with very drastic clauses– are clawback legislation for press freedom in Uganda. The AHA in itself fundamentally affected the practice of journalism. The legislation falls short of drawing a clear distinction between what amounts to promotion or education [with regards to sharing material related to homosexuality]. Yet one of the crucial roles of the media is to educate the population about many things, but here, it’s not clear when the media is promoting and when it is educating. So it wants to slap a blackout completely on when you’re discussing the LGBTQI+ issues in the country. So, this law is very ambiguous and therefore susceptible to abuse at the expense of freedom speech

 And it also introduces very drastic sanctions. For instance, if one writes about homosexuality their media operating license is revoked for ten years. And I’m sure no media house can stand up again after ten years of closure and can still breathe life. Also, the AHA generalizes the practice of an individual journalist. If, for instance, one of your journalists writes something that the law looks at as against it, the entire media house license is revoked for ten years, but also you’re imprisoned for five years – you as the writer. In addition, you receive a hefty fine of the equivalent of 1 billion Uganda shillings, that’s about 250,000 euros. Which is really too much for any media house operating in Uganda.

 So that alone has created a lot of fear to discuss these issues, even when the law was passed in such a rushed manner with total disregard for the input of key stakeholders like the media, among others. As a media rights organization, we had looked at the draft bill and we were planning to make a presentation before the Parliamentary Committee. But within a week they closed all public hearings opinions, which limited the space for engagement. Within a few days the law had been written, presented again, and then assented to by the President. No wonder it’s being challenged in the Constitutional Court. This is the second time actually that such a law has been challenged. Of course, there are many other laws, like the Anti-Terrorism Act, which has not clearly defined the role of a journalist who speaks to a person who engages in subversive activities as terrorism. Where the law presupposes that before interviewing a person or before hosting them in your shows, you must have done a lot of background checks to make sure they have not engaged in such terrorism acts. So if you do not, the law here presses a criminal liability on the talk show host for promoting and abetting terrorism. And if there’s a conviction, the ultimate punishment is being sentenced to death. So these couple of laws are really used to curtail freedom of expression.

 York: Wow, that’s incredible. I understand how this impacts media houses, but what would you say the impact is on ordinary citizens or individual activists, for example?

 Under the Computer Misuse Amendment Act, the amended Act is restrictive and inhibitive to freedom of expression in regards to citizen journalism. It introduces such stringent conditions, like, if I’m going to record a video of you, say that I’m a journalist, citizen journalist or an activist who is not working for a media house, I must seek your permission before I record you in case you’re committing a crime. The law presupposes that I have no right to record you and later on disseminate the video without your explicit permission. Notably, the law is silent on the nature of the admissible permission, whether it is an email, SMS, WhatsApp, voice note, written note, etc. Also, the law presupposes that before I send you such a video, I must seek for your permission as the intended recipient of the said message. For instance, if I send you an email and you think you don’t need it, you can open a case against me for sending you unsolicited information. Unsolicited information – that’s the word that’s used.

 So the law is so amorphous in this nature that it completely closes out the liberty of a free society where citizens can engage in discussions, dialogues, or give opinions or ideas. For instance, I could be a very successful farmer, and I think the public could benefit from my farming practices, and I record a lot of what I do and I disseminate those videos. Somebody who receives this, wherever they are, can run to court and use this amended Computer Misuse Act to open up charges against me. And the fines are also very hefty compared to the crimes that the law talks about. So it is so evident that the law is killing citizen journalism, dissent, and activism at all levels. The law does not seem to cater to a free society where the individual citizens can express themselves at any one time, can criticize their leaders, and can hold them accountable. In the presence of this law, we do not have a society that can hold anyone accountable or that can keep the powerful in check. So the spirit of the law is bad. The powerful fence themselves off from the ordinary citizens that are out there watching and not able to track their progress of things or raise red flags through the different social media platforms. But we have tried to challenge this law. There is a group of us, 13 individual activists and CSOs that have gone to the Constitutional Court to say, “this law is counterproductive to freedom of expression, democracy, rule of law and a free society.” We believe that the court will agree with us given its key function of promoting human rights, good governance, democracy, and the rule of law.

 York: That was my next question- I was going to ask how are people fighting against these laws?

 People are very active in terms of pushing back and to that extent we have many petitions that are in court. For instance, the Computer Misuse Amendment is being challenged. We had the Anti-pornographic Act of 2014 which was so amorphous in its nature that it didn’t clearly define what actually amounts to pornography. For instance, if I went around people in a swimming pool in their swimming trunks and took photos and carried those in the newspaper or on TV, that would be promoting pornography. So that was counterproductive to journalism so we went to court. And, fortunately, a court ruled in our favor. So the citizens are really up in arms to fight back because that’s the only way we can have civic engagements that are not restricted through a litany of such laws. There has been civic participation and engagement through mass media, dialogues with key actors, among others. However, many fear to speak out due to fear of reprisals, having seen the closure of media houses, the arrest and detention of activists and journalists, and the use of administrative sanctions to curtail free expression.

 York: Are there ways in which international groups and activists can stand in solidarity with those of you who are fighting back against these laws?

 There’s a lot of backlash on organizations, especially local ones, that tend to work a lot with international organizations. The government seems to be so threatened by the international eye as compared to local eyes, because recently it banned the UN Human Rights Office. They had to wind up business and leave the country. Also, the offices of the Democratic Governance Facility (DGF), which was a basket of embassies and the EU that were the biggest funding entity for the civil society. And actually for the government, too, because they were empowering citizens, you know, empowering the demand side to heighten its demand for services from the supply side. The government said no and they had to wind up their offices and leave. This has severely crippled the work of civil society, media, and, generally, governance.

The UN played an important role before they left and we now have that gap. Yet this comes at a time when our national Uganda Human Rights Commission is at its weakest due to a number of structural challenges characterizing it. The current leadership of the Commission is always up in arms against the political opposition for accusing government of committing human rights excesses against its members. So we do our best to work with international organizations through sharing our voices. We have an African Hub, like the African IFEX, where the members try to replicate voices from here. In that nature we do try a lot, but it’s not very easy for them to come here and do their practices. Just like you will realize a lot of foreign correspondents, foreign journalists, who work in Uganda are highly restricted. It’s a tug of war to have their licenses renewed. Because it’s politically handled. It was taken away from the professional body of the Media Council of Uganda to the Media Centre of Uganda, which is a government mouthpiece.  So for the critical foreign correspondents their licenses are rarely renewed. When it comes to election times most of them are blocked from even coming here to cover the elections. The international media development bodies can help to build capacities of our media development organizations, facilitate research, provide legal aid support, and engage the government on the excesses of the security forces and some emergency responses for victims, among others.

 York: Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you’d like to share with our readers?

 One thing I was to add is about trying to have an international focus on Uganda in the build up to elections. There’s a lot of havoc that happens to the citizens, but most importantly, to the activists and human rights defenders. Either cultural activists or media activists- a lot happens. And most of these things are not captured well because it is prior to the peak of campaigns or there is fear by the local media of capturing such situations. So by the time we get international attention, sometimes the damage is really too irreparable and a lot has happened. As opposed to if there was that international focus from the world. To me, that should really be captured because it would mitigate a lot that has happened. 

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Maryam Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini Woman Human Rights Defender who works as a consultant and trainer on Human Rights. She is a leading voice for human rights and political reform in Bahrain and the Gulf region. She has been influential in shaping official responses to human rights atrocities in Bahrain and the Gulf region by leading campaigns and engaging with prominent policymakers around the world.

She played an instrumental role in the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout in February 2011. These protests triggered a government response of widespread extra judicial killings, arrests, and torture, which she documented extensively over social media. Due to her human rights work, she was subjected to assault, threats, defamation campaigns, imprisonment and an unfair trial. She was arrested on illegitimate charges in 2014 and sentenced in absentia to one year in prison. She currently has an outstanding arrest warrant and four pending cases, one of which could carry a life sentence. She serves on the Boards of the International Service for Human Rights, Urgent Action Fund, CIVICUS and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. She also previously served as Co-Director at the Gulf Center for Human Rights and Acting President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights.

York: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your work? Maybe provide us a brief outline of your history as a free expression advocate going back as far as you’d like.

Maryam: Sure, so my name is Maryam Al-Khawaja. I’m a Bahraini-Danish human rights defender and advocate. I’ve worked in many different spaces around human rights and on many different thematic issues. Of course freedom of expression is an intricate part of nearly any kind of human rights advocacy work. And it’s one of the issues that is critical to the work that we do and critical to the civil society space because it not only affects people who live in dictatorships, but also people who live in democracies or pseudodemocracies. A lot of times there’s not necessarily an agreement around what freedom of expression is or a definition of what falls under the scope of freedom of expression. And also to who and how that applies. So while some things for some people might be considered free expression, for others it might be considered not as free expression and therefore it’s not protected.

I think it’s something that I’ve both experienced having done the work and having taken part in the revolution in Bahrain and watching the difference between how we went from self-censorship prior to the uprising and then how people took to the streets and started saying whatever they wanted. That moment of just breaking down that wall and feeling almost like you could breathe again because you suddenly could express yourself. Not necessarily without fear – because the consequences were still there – but more so that you were doing it anyway, despite the fear. I think that’s one of the strongest memories I have of the importance of speech and that shift that happens even internally because, yes, there’s censorship in Bahrain, but censorship then creates self-censorship for protection and self preservation.

It’s interesting because I then left Bahrain and came to Denmark and I started seeing how, as a Brown, Muslim woman, my right to free expression doesn’t look the same as someone who is White living in Europe. So I also had to learn those intricacies and how that works and how we stand up to that or fight against that. It’s… been a long struggle, to keep it short.

York: That’s a really strong answer and I want to come back to something you said, and that’s that censorship creates self-censorship. I think we both know the moment we’re living in right now, and I’m seeing a lot of self-censorship even from people who typically are very staunch in standing up for freedom of expression. I’m curious, in the past decade, how has the idea that censorship creates self-censorship impacted you and the people around you or the activists that you know?

One part of it is when you’re an advocate and you look how I look – especially when I was wearing the headscarf – you learn very quickly that there are things that people find acceptable coming from you, and things they find not acceptable. There are judgements and stereotypes that are applied to you and therefore what you can and cannot say actually has to also be taken into that context.

Like to give you a small example, one of the things that I faced a lot during my advocacy and my work on Bahrain was I was constantly put in a space where I had to explain or… not justify – because I don’t support the use of violence generally – but I was put in a defensive position of “Why are you as civil society not telling these youth not to use Molotov cocktails on the street of Bahrain?” And I would try to explain that while I don’t justify the use of violence generally, it’s important to understand the context. And to understand that a small group of youth in Bahrain started using Molotov cocktails as a way to defend themselves, to try and get the riot police out of their villages when the riot police would come in in the middle of the night and basically go on a rampage, break into people’s homes, beat people to a pulp, and then take people and disappear them or torture them and so on. And so one of the ways for them to try and fight back was to use Molotov cocktails to at least get the riot police to stop coming into their villages. Of course this was always taken as me justifying violence or me supporting terrorism. Unfortunately, it wasn’t surprising, but it was such a clarifying moment. Then I watched those very same people at the very same media outlets literally put out tutorials on how to make Molotov cocktails for people in Ukraine fighting back against Russia. It’s not surprising because I know that’s how the world works, I know that in the world that we live in and the societies that we live in, my life is not equal to that of others – specific others. I very quickly learned that my work as a person of color – and I don’t really like that term – but as a person of the global majority, it’s my proximity to whiteness that decides my value as a human being. Unfortunately.

So that’s one layer of it. Another layer of it is here in Europe. I live in Copenhagen. I travel in the West quite often. I’ve also seen the difference of how we’re positioned as – especially Muslims with the incredible amounts of Islamophobia especially in Copenhagen – and seeing how politicians can come out and say incredibly Islamophobic and racist things and be written off as freedom of expression. But if someone of the global majority were to do that they would immediately be dubbed as extremist or a radical.

There is this extreme double standard when it comes to what freedom of expression looks like and how it’s implemented. And I’ll end with this example, with the Charlie Hebdo example. There was such a huge international solidarity movement when the attack on Charlie Hebdo happened in France. And obviously the killing that happened, there doesn’t even need to be a conversation around that, of course everyone should condemn that. What I find lacking in the conversation around freedom of expression when it comes to Charlie Hebdo is that Charlie Hebdo targets Muslim minorities that are already under attack, that are already discriminated against, and, in my mind, it actually incites violence against them when it does so. Because they’re already so targeted, because they’re vilified already in the media by politicians and so on. So my approach isn’t to say, “we should start censoring these media publications” or “we should start censoring people from being able to say what they say.” I’m saying that when we’re going to implement rules or understandings around freedom of expression it needs to be implemented equally. It needs to be implemented without double standards. Without picking and choosing who gets to have freedom of expression versus who doesn’t.

York: That’s such a great point. And I’m glad you brought up Charlie Hebdo. Coming back to that, it reminded me about the different governments that we saw, from my perspective, pretending to march for free expression when that happened. We saw a number of states that ranked fairly poorly on press freedom at the time. My recollection is we saw a number of countries that don’t have a great track record on freedom of expression, I think including Russia, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, take a stance at that time. What that evokes for me is the hypocrisy of various states. We think about censorship as a potent tool for those in power to maintain power and then of course that sort of political posturing is also a very potent tool. So what are your thoughts on that? How does that inform your advocacy?

Like I said, we’ve already seen it throughout Europe and throughout the United States. Right now with the Gaza situation we’re seeing this with even more clarity – and it’s not like it was hidden before, those of us that work in these spaces already knew this – but I think right now it’s just so in-your-face where people are literally getting fired from their jobs and called into HR for liking posts, for posting things basically standing against an ongoing genocide. And I think, again, it brings to the surface the double standard and the hypocrisy that exists within the spaces that talk about freedom of expression. France is actually a great example. Even when we’re talking about Charlie Hebdo; Charlie Hebdo did the cover of the magazine before they were attacked. It was mocking the Rabaa Massacre, which was one of the largest massacres to happen in Egypt in recent history. Regardless of what you think of the Muslim Brotherhood, that was a massacre, it was wrong, it should be condemned. And they poked fun at that. They had this man with a long beard who looked like the Muslim Brotherhood holding up a Quran with bullets going through the Quran and hitting him, saying, “your Quran won’t protect you.” This was considered freedom of expression even though it was mocking a literal massacre that happened in Egypt. Which, in my opinion, the Egyptian regime should be considered as committing terrorist acts for that massacre. And so in some ways that could be considered as supporting terrorism. Just like I consider what is happening to the Palestinians as a form of terrorism. The same thing with Syria and so on.

But, unfortunately, it’s the people who own the discourse that get to decide what phrases and what terminologies can be applied and used where. But the point that I was making about Charlie Hebdo is that not much later after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, there was a 16 year old in France who made a cartoon cover where he mocks the attack on Charlie Hebdo. He basically used the exact same type of cartoon that they had used around the Rabaa massacre. Where there’s a guy from Charlie Hebdo holding up a copy of Charlie Hebdo and being struck by bullets and saying “your magazine doesn’t stop bullets.” And he was arrested! This 16 year old kid does this cartoon – exactly the same as the magazine had done after the massacre – and he was arrested and charged with advocating terrorism. And I think this is one of the clearest examples of how freedom of expression is not implemented on an equal level when it comes to who’s practicing it.

I think it’s the same thing as what we’re seeing right now happening with Palestine. When you look at what’s happening in Germany with the amount of people being arrested [for unauthorized protests] and now we’re even hearing about raids on people’s homes. I’ve spoken to some of my friends in Germany who say that they’re literally trying to hide and get rid of any pro-Palestinian flyers or flags that they have just in case their home gets raided. It’s interesting because quite a few Arabs in Germany now are referring to Germany as Assad’s Germany. Because a lot of what’s happening in Germany right now, to them, is reminiscent of what it was like to live in Syria under Assad. I think that tells you almost everything you need to know about the double standards of how these things are implemented. I think this is where the problem comes in.

You can not talk about free expression and freedom of speech without talking about how it’s related to colonialism. About how it’s related to movements for freedom. About how it’s related to the fact that much of our human rights movements in civil society are currently based on institutionalized human rights – and I’m talking specifically about the West, obviously, because there are a lot of grassroots movements in the global majority countries. But we can not talk about these things without talking about the need and importance of decolonizing our activism.

My thinking right now is very much inspired by Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, where he talks about how when colonizers colonized, they didn’t just colonize the country and the institutions and education and all these different things. They even colonized and decided for us and dictated for us how we’re allowed to fight back. How we’re allowed to resist. And I think that’s incredibly true. There’s a very rigid understanding of the space that you’re allowed to exist in or have to exist in to be regarded as a credible human rights activist. Whether it’s for free speech or for any other human right. And so, in my mind, what we need right now is to decolonize our activism. And to step away from that idea that it’s the West that decides for us what “appropriate” or “acceptable” activism actually looks like. And start deciding for ourselves what our activism needs to look like. Because we know now that none of these people that have supported the genocide in Gaza can in any way shape or form try to dictate what humans rights look like or what activism looks like. I’ve seen this over social media over the past period and people have been saying this over and over again that what died in Gaza is that pretense. That the West gets to tell the rest of us what human rights are and what freedoms are and how we should fight for them.

York: Let’s change directions for a moment. What do you think of the control that corporations have over deciding what speech parameters look like right now? 

[Laughs] Where do I start? I think it’s a struggle for a lot of us.

I want to first acknowledge that I have a lot of privileges that other activists don’t. When I left Bahrain in 2011 I already had Danish citizenship. Which meant that I could travel. I already had a strong command of English. Which meant that I could do meetings without the need for a translator. That I could attend and be in certain spaces. And that’s not necessarily the case for so many other activists. And so I do have a lot of privileges that have put me in the position that I am in. And I believe that part of having privileges like that means that I need to use them to be also a loud speaker for others. And to try and make this world a better place, in whatever shape and form that I can. That being said, I think that for many of us even who have had privileges that other activists don’t, it’s been a real struggle to watch the mediums and tools that we have been using for the past, over a decade, as a means of raising pressure, communicating with the world, connecting, and so on, be taken away from us. In ways that we can’t control and in ways that we don’t have a say on. I think that for a lot of – and I know especially for myself – but I think for a lot of activists who really found their voices in 2011 as part of activism especially on platforms like Twitter.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter and decided to remove the verification status from all of us activists who had that for a reason. I remember I received my verification status because of the amount of fake accounts that the Bahraini government was creating at that time to impersonate me to try to discredit me. And also because I was receiving death threats and rape threats and all kinds of threats, over and over again. I received that verification status as an acknowledgement that I need support against those attacks that I was being subjected to. And it was gone overnight. It’s not just about that blue tick. It’s that people don’t see my Tweets the way that they used to. It’s about the fact that my message can’t go as far as it used to go. It’s not just because we no longer show up in people’s feeds, but also because so many people have left the platform because of how problematic it’s become.

In some ways I spent 13 years focused on Twitter, building a following—obviously, my work is so much more than Twitter—but Twitter has been a tool for the work that I do. And really building a following and making sure that people trusted me and the information that I shared and that I was a trusted and credible source of information. Not just on Bahrain, but on all of the different types of work that I do. And then suddenly overnight, at the age of 35, 36 having to recreate that all over again on Instagram. And on TikTok. And the thing is… we’re tired. We’re exhausted. We’re burnt out. We’re not doing well. Almost everyone I know is either depressed or sick or dealing with some form of health issue. Thirteen years after the uprisings we’re not doing well and we’re not okay. What’s happening with Gaza right now is hitting all of us. I think it’s incredibly triggering and hurtful. I think the idea that we now have to make that effort to rebuild platforms to be able to reach people, it’s not just “Oh my god, I don’t have the energy for it.” It’s like someone tore a limb from us and we have to try to regrow that limb. And how do you regrow a limb, right? It’s incredibly painful.

Obviously, it’s nice to have a large following and for people to recognize you and know who you are and so on—and it’s hard work not letting that get to your head—but, for me, losing my voice is not about the follower count or how much people know who I am. It’s the fact that I can no longer get the same kind of attention for my father’s case. I can no longer get the same kind of attention for the hundreds of people who no one knows their names or their faces who are sitting in prison cells in Bahrain who are still being tortured. For the children who are still being arrested for protesting. For Palestine and Bahrain. I can no longer make sure that I’m a loudspeaker so that people know these things are happening.

A lot of people talked about and wrote about the damage that Elon Musk did to Twitter and to that “public square” that we have. Twitter has always had its problems. And Meta has always had its problems. But it was a problem where we at least had a voice. We weren’t always heard and we weren’t always able to influence things, but at least it felt like we had a voice. Now it doesn’t feel like we have a voice. There was a lot of conversation around this, around the taking away of the public square, but there are these intricacies and details that affect us on such a personal level that I don’t think people outside of these circles can really understand or even think about. And how it affects when I need to make noise because my father might die from a heart attack because they’re refusing to give him medical treatment. And I can’t get retweets or I can’t get people to re-post. Or only 100 people are seeing the videos I’m posting on Instagram. It’s not that I care about having that following, it’s about literally being able to save my father’s life. So it takes such a toll on you on a personal level as well. I think that’s the part of the conversation that I think is missing when we talk about these things.

I can’t imagine—but in some ways I can imagine—how it feels for Palestinians right now. To watch their family members, their people being subjected to an ongoing genocide and then have their voices taken away from them, to be subjected to shadowbans, to have their accounts shut down. It’s insult added to injury. You’re already hurting. You’re already in pain. You’re already not doing well. You’re already struggling just to survive another day and the only thing you have is your voice and then even that is taken away from you. I don’t think we can even begin to imagine the kind of damage on mental health and even physical health that that’s going to have in the coming years and in the coming generations because, of course, we pass down our trauma to the people around us as well. 

York: I’m going to take a slight step back and a slight segue because I want to be able to use this interview for you to talk about your father’s case as well. Can you tell us about your father’s case and where it stands today?

My father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, dedicated his entire life to human rights activism. Which is why he spent half his life, if not more than that, in exile. And it’s why he spent the last thirteen years in prison. My father is the only Danish prisoner of conscience in the world today. And I very strongly believe that if my father was not a Brown, Muslim man he would not have spent this long as an EU citizen in a prison cell based on freedom of expression charges. And this is one of those cases where you really get to recognize those double standards. Where Denmark prides itself on being one of the countries that is the biggest protector of freedom of expression. And yet the entire case against my father – and my father was one of the human rights leaders of the uprising in 2011 – and he led the protests and he talked about human rights and freedom and he talked about the importance of us doing things the right way. And I think that’s why he was seen as such a threat.

One of his speeches was about how even if we are able to change the government in Bahrain, we are not going to torture. We’re not going to be like them. We’re going to make sure that people who were perpetrators receive due process and fair trials. He always focused on the importance of people fighting for justice and fighting for change to do things the right way and from a human rights framework. He was arrested very violently from my sister’s home in front of my friends and family. He was beaten unconscious in front of my family. And he repeatedly said as he was being beaten, “I can’t breathe.” And every time I think of what happened with my father I think of Eric Garner as well – where he said over and over again “I can’t breathe” when he was basically killed by the United States police. Then my father was taken away.

Interestingly enough, especially because we’re talking about freedom of expression, my father was charged with terrorism. In Bahrain, the terrorism law is so vague that even the work of a human rights defender can be regarded as terrorism. So even criticizing the police for committing violations can be seen as inciting terrorism. So my father was arrested and tried under the terrorism law, and they said he was trying to overthrow the government. But Human Rights Watch actually dissected the case that was brought against my father and the “evidence” that he was of course forced to sign under torture. He was subjected to very severe psychological and sexual torture for over two months during which he was disappeared as well – held in incommunicado detention. When they did that dissection of the case they found that all of the charges against my father were based on freedom of expression issues. It was all based on things that he had said during the protests around calling for democracy, around calling for representative government, the right to self determination, and more. It’s very much a freedom of expression issue.

What I find horrifying – but also it says a lot about the case against my father and why he’s in prison today – is that one of the first things they did to my dad was they hit him with a hard object on his jaw and they broke his jaw. Even my father says that he feels they did that on purpose because they were hoping that he would never be able to speak again. They broke his jaw in six different places, or four different places. He had to undergo a four hour surgery where they reattached his jaw. They had to use more than twenty metal plates and screws to put his jaw back together. And he, of course, still has chronic pain and issues because of what they did. He was subjected to so much else like electrocutions and more, but that was a very specific intentional first blow that he received when he was arrested. To the face and to the mouth. As punishment, as retaliation, for having used his right to free expression to speak up and criticize the government. I think this tells you pretty much everything you need to know about what the situation of freedom of expression is in Bahrain. But it should also tell you a lot about the EU and the West and how they regard the importance of freedom of expression when the fact that my father is an EU citizen has not actually protected him. And 13 years later he continues to sit in a prison cell serving a life sentence because he practiced his right to free expression and because he practiced his right to freedom of assembly.

Last year, my father decided to do a one-person protest in the prison yard. Both in solidarity with Palestine, but also because of the consistent and systematic denial of adequate medical treatment to prisoners of conscience in Bahrain. Because of that, and because he was again using his right to free expression inside prison, he was denied medical treatment for over a year. And my father had developed a heart condition. So a few months ago his condition started to get really bad, the doctors told us he might have a heart attack or a stroke at any time given that he was being denied access to a cardiologist. So I had to put myself and my freedom at risk. I’m already sentenced to one year in prison in Bahrain, I have four pending cases – basically, going back to Bahrain means that I am very likely to spend the rest of my life in prison, if not be subjected to torture. Which I have been in the past as well. But I decided to try and go back to Bahrain because the Danish government was refusing to step up. The West was refusing to step up. I mean we were asking for the bare minimum, which was access to a cardiologist. So I had to put myself at risk to try and bring attention.

I ended up being denied boarding because there was too much international attention around my trip. So they denied me boarding because they didn’t want international coverage around me being arrested at the Bahrain airport again. I managed to get several very high profile human rights personalities to go with me on the trip. Because of that, and because we were able to raise so much international attention around my dad’s case, they actually ended up taking him to the cardiologist and now he’s on heart medication. But he’s never out of the danger zone, with Bahrain being what it is and because he’s still sitting in a prison cell. We’re still working hard on getting him out, but I think for my dad it’s always about his principles and his values and his ethics. For him, being a human rights defender, being in prison doesn’t mean the end of his activism. And that’s why he’s gone on more than seven hunger strikes in prison, that’s why he’s done multiple one-person protests in the prison yard. For him, his activism is an ongoing thing even from inside his prison cell.

York: That’s an incredible story and I appreciate you sharing it with our readers—your father is incredibly brave. Last question- who is your free speech hero?

Of course my dad, for sure. He always taught us the importance of using our voice not just to speak up for ourselves but for others especially. There’s so many that I’m drawing a blank! I can tell you that my favorite quote is by Edward Snowden. “Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.” I think that really brings things to the point.

There’s also an indigenous activist in the US who has been doing such a tremendous job using her voice to bring attention to what’s happening to the indigenous communities in the US. And I know it comes at a cost and it comes at great risk. There’s several Syrian activists and Palestinian activists. Motaz Azaiza and his reporting on what’s happening now in Gaza and the price that he’s paying for it, same thing with Bisan and Plestia. She’s also a Palestinian journalist who’s been reporting on Gaza. There’s just so many free expression heroes. People who have really excelled in understanding how to use their voice to make this world a better place. Those are my heroes. The everyday people who choose to do the right thing when it’s easier not to.

We’ve been saying it for 20 years, and it remains true now more than ever: the internet is an essential service. It enables people to build and create communities, shed light on injustices, and acquire vital knowledge that might not otherwise be available. And access to it becomes even more imperative in circumstances where being able to communicate and share real-time information directly with the people you trust is instrumental to personal safety and survival. More specifically, during wartime and conflict, internet and phone services enable the communication of information between people in challenging situations, as well as the reporting by on-the-ground journalists and ordinary people of the news. 

Unfortunately, governments across the world are very aware of their power to cut off this crucial lifeline, and frequently undertake targeted initiatives to do so. These internet shutdowns have become a blunt instrument that aid state violence and inhibit free speech, and are routinely deployed in direct contravention of human rights and civil liberties.

And this is not a one-dimensional situation. Nearly twenty years after the world’s first total internet shutdowns, this draconian measure is no longer the sole domain of authoritarian states but has become a favorite of a diverse set of governments across three continents. For example:

In Iran, the government has been suppressing internet access for many years. In the past two years in particular, people of Iran have suffered repeated internet and social media blackouts following an activist movement that blossomed after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman murdered in police custody for refusing to wear a hijab. The movement gained global attention and in response, the Iranian government rushed to control both the public narrative and organizing efforts by banning social media, and sometimes cutting off internet access altogether. 

In Sudan, authorities have enacted a total telecommunications blackout during a massive conflict and displacement crisis. Shutting down the internet is a deliberate strategy blocking the flow of information that brings visibility to the crisis and prevents humanitarian aid from supporting populations endangered by the conflict. The communications blackout has extended for weeks, and in response a global campaign #KeepItOn has formed to put pressure on the Sudanese government to restore its peoples' access to these vital services. More than 300 global humanitarian organizations have signed on to support #KeepItOn.

And in Palestine, where the Israeli government exercises near-total control over both wired internet and mobile phone infrastructure, Palestinians in Gaza have experienced repeated internet blackouts inflicted by the Israeli authorities. The latest blackout in January 2024 occurred amid a widespread crackdown by the Israeli government on digital rights—including censorship, surveillance, and arrests—and amid accusations of bias and unwarranted censorship by social media platforms. On that occasion, the internet was restored after calls from civil society and nations, including the U.S. As we’ve noted, internet shutdowns impede residents' ability to access and share resources and information, as well as the ability of residents and journalists to document and call attention to the situation on the ground—more necessary than ever given that a total of 83 journalists have been killed in the conflict so far. 

Given that all of the internet cables connecting Gaza to the outside world go through Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Communications has the ability to cut off Palestinians’ access with ease. The Ministry also allocates spectrum to cell phone companies; in 2015 we wrote about an agreement that delivered 3G to Palestinians years later than the rest of the world. In 2022, President Biden offered to upgrade the West Bank and Gaza to 4G, but the initiative stalled. While some Palestinians are able to circumvent the blackout by utilizing Israeli SIM cards (which are difficult to obtain) or Egyptian eSIMs, these workarounds are not solutions to the larger problem of blackouts, which the National Security Council has said: “[deprive] people from accessing lifesaving information, while also undermining first responders and other humanitarian actors’ ability to operate and to do so safely.”

Access to internet infrastructure is essential, in wartime as in peacetime. In light of these numerous blackouts, we remain concerned about the control that authorities are able to exercise over the ability of millions of people to communicate. It is imperative that people’s access to the internet remains protected, regardless of how user platforms and internet companies transform over time. We continue to shout this, again and again, because it needs to be restated, and unfortunately today there are ever more examples of it happening before our eyes.

Today is International Women’s Day, a day celebrating the achievements of women globally but also a day marking a call to action for accelerating equality and improving the lives of women the world over. 

The internet is a vital tool for women everywhere—provided they have access and are able to use it freely. Here are four reasons why we’re working to protect the free and open internet for women and everyone.

1. The Fight For Reproductive Privacy and Information Access Is Not Over

Data privacy, free expression, and freedom from surveillance intersect with the broader fight for reproductive justice and safe access to abortion. Like so many other aspects of managing our healthcare, these issues are fundamentally tied to our digital lives. With the decision of Dobbs v. Jackson to overturn the protections that Roe v. Wade offered for people seeking abortion healthcare in the United States, what was benign data before is now potentially criminal evidence. This expanded threat to digital rights is especially dangerous for BIPOC, lower-income, immigrant, LGBTQ+ people and other traditionally marginalized communities, and the healthcare providers serving these communities. The repeal of Roe created a lot of new dangers for people seeking healthcare. EFF is working hard to protect your rights in two main areas: 1) your data privacy and security, and 2) your online right to free speech.

2. Governments Continue to Cut Internet Access to Quell Political Dissidence   

The internet is an essential service that enables people to build and create communities, shed light on injustices, and acquire vital knowledge that might not otherwise be available. Governments are very aware of their power to cut off access to this crucial lifeline, and frequently undertake targeted initiatives to shut down civilian access to the internet. In Iran, people have suffered Internet and social media blackouts on and off for nearly two years, following an activist movement rising up after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman murdered in police custody for refusing to wear a hijab. The movement gained global attention, and in response, the Iranian government rushed to control visibility on the injustice. Social media has been banned in Iran and intermittent shutdowns of the entire peoples’ access to the Internet has cost the country millions, all in effort to control the flow of information and quell political dissidence.

3. People Need to Know When They Are Being Stalked Through Tracking Tech 

At EFF, we’ve been sounding the alarm about the way physical trackers like AirTags and Tiles can be slipped into a target’s bag or car, allowing stalkers and abusers unprecedented access to a person’s location without their knowledge. We’ve also been calling attention to stalkerware, commercially-available apps that are designed to be covertly installed on another person’s device for the purpose of monitoring their activity without their knowledge or consent. This is a huge threat to survivors of domestic abuse as stalkers can track their locations, as well as access a lot of sensitive information like all passwords and documents. For example, Imminent Monitor, once installed on a victim’s computer, could turn on their webcam and microphone, allow perpetrators to view their documents, photographs, and other files, and record all keystrokes entered. Everyone involved in these industries has the responsibility to create a safeguard for people.

4. LGBTQ+ Rights Online Are Being Attacked 

An increase in anti-LGBTQ+ intolerance is harming individuals and communities both online and offline across the globe. Several countries are introducing explicitly anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives to restrict freedom of expression and privacy, which is in turn fuelling offline intolerance against LGBTQ+ people. Across the United States, a growing number of states prohibited transgender youths from obtaining gender-affirming health care, and some restricted access for transgender adults. That’s why we’ve worked to pass data sanctuary laws in pro-LGBTQ+ states to shield health records from disclosure to anti-LGBTQ+ states.

The problem is global. In Jordan, the new Cybercrime Law of 2023 in Jordan restricts encryption and anonymity in digital communications. And in Ghana, the country’s Parliament just voted to pass the country’s draconian Family Values Bill, which introduces prison sentences for those who partake in LGBTQ+ sexual acts, as well as those who promote the rights of gay, lesbian or other non-conventional sexual or gender identities. EFF is working to expose and resist laws like these, and we hope you’ll join us!

This blog is part of our International Women’s Day series. Read other articles about the fight for gender justice and equitable digital rights for all.

1. Four Infosec Tools for Resistance this International Women’s Day
2. Four Voices You Should Hear this International Women’s Day
3. Four Actions You Can Take To Protect Digital Rights this International Women’s Day

It is troubling to see that the Indian government has issued new demands to X (formerly Twitter) to remove accounts and posts critical of the government and its recent actions. This is especially bears watching as India is preparing for general elections this spring, and concerns for the government’s manipulation of social media critical of it grows.

On Wednesday, X’s Global Government Affairs account (@GlobalAffairs) tweeted:

The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment. 

In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.

Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies.

Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders, but we believe that making them public is essential for transparency. This lack of disclosure can lead to a lack of accountability and arbitrary decision-making.

India’s general elections are set to take place in April or May and will elect 543 members of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the country’s parliament. Since February, farm unions in the country have been striking for floor pricing (also known as a minimum support price) for their crops. While protesters have attempted to march to Delhi from neighboring states, authorities have reportedly barricaded city borders, and two neighboring states ruled by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have deployed troops in order to stop the farmers from reaching the capital.

According to reports, the accounts locally withheld by X in response to the Indian government’s orders are critical of the BJP, while some accounts that were supporting or merely covering the farmer’s protests have also been withheld. Several account holders have identified themselves as being among those notified by X, while other users have identified many other accounts.

This isn’t the first time that the Indian government has gone after X users. In 2021, when the company—then called Twitter—was under different leadership, it suspended 500 accounts, then first reversed its decision, citing freedom of speech, and later re-suspended the accounts, citing compliance with India’s Information Technology Act. And in 2023, the company withheld 120 accounts critical of the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

This is exactly the type of censorship we feared when EFF previously criticized the ITA’s rules, enacted in 2021, that force online intermediaries to comply with strict removal time frames under government orders. The rules require online intermediaries like X to remove restricted posts within 36 hours of receiving notice. X can challenge the order—as they have indicated they intend to—but the posts will remain down until that challenge is fully adjudicated.

EFF is also currently fighting back against efforts related to an Indian court order that required Reuters news service to de-publish one of its articles while a legal challenge to it is considered by the courts. This type of interim censorship is unauthorized in most legal systems. Those involved in the case have falsely represented to others who wrote about the Reuters story that the order applied to them as well.

The UAE confirmed this week that it has placed 84 detainees on trial, on charges of “establishing another secret organization for the purpose of committing acts of violence and terrorism on state territory.” Suspected to be among those facing trial is award-winning human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, also known as the “the million dollar dissident,” as he was once the target of exploits that exposed major security flaws in Apple’s iOS operating system—the kind of “zero-day” vulnerabilities that fetch seven figures on the exploit market. Mansoor drew the ire of UAE authorities for criticizing the country’s internet censorship and surveillance apparatus and for calling for a free press and democratic freedoms in the country.

Having previously been arrested in 2011 and sentenced to three years' imprisonment for “insulting officials,'' Ahmed Mansoor was released after eight months due to a presidential pardon influenced by international pressure. Later, Mansoor faced new speech-related charges for using social media to “publish false information that harms national unity.” During this period, authorities held him in an unknown location for over a year, deprived of legal representation, before convicting him again in May 2018 to ten years in prison under the UAE’s draconian cybercrime law. We have long advocated for his release, and are joined in doing so by hundreds of digital and human rights organizations around the world.

At the recent COP28 climate talks, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and other activists conducted a protest inside the UN-protected “blue zone” to raise awareness of Mansoor’s plight, as well the cases of both UAE detainee Mohamed El-Siddiq and Egyptian-British activist  Alaa Abd El Fattah. At the same time, it was reported by a dissident group that the UAE was proceeding with the trial against 84 of its detainees.

We reiterate our call for Ahmed Mansoor’s freedom, and take this opportunity to raise further awareness of the oppressive nature of the legislation that was used to imprison him. The UAE’s use of its criminal law to silence those who speak truth to power is another example of how counter-terrorism laws restrict free expression and justify disproportionate state surveillance. This concern is not hypothetical; a 2023 study by the Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism found widespread and systematic abuse of civil society and civic space through the use of similar laws supposedly designed to counter terrorism. Moreover, and problematically, references 'related to terrorism’ in the treaty preamble are still included in the latest version of a proposed United Nations Cybercrime Treaty, currently being negotiated with more than 190 member states, even though there is no  agreed-upon definition of terrorism in international law. If approved as currently written, the UN Cybercrime Treaty has the potential to substantively reshape international criminal law and bolster cross-border police surveillance powers to access and share users’ data, implicating the human rights of billions of people worldwide, and could enable States to justify repressive measures that overly restrict free expression and peaceful dissent.