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ISHR co-organised a side event on the protection of human rights defenders against new and emerging forms of technology-facilitated rights violations on the margins of the 58th session of the Human Rights Council.
On 7 March, on the sidelines of the 58th session of the Human Rights Council, ISHR co-sponsored a side event on the protection of human rights defenders against new and emerging forms of technology-facilitated rights violations in the presence of defenders, State representatives and NGOs.
Emerging technologies have become a fundamental tool for human rights defenders to conduct their activities and allow their voices to reach beyond borders, oftentimes at great risk to their security. However, these new tools can also have a negative impact on the enjoyment of human rights and represent serious threats and challenges for human rights defenders.
Within these lines, the side event hosted a panel discussing the reality and the challenges that defenders face in the context of new and emerging technologies. It allowed defenders working in the field of digital rights to highlight their specific protection needs.
With moderation by ISHR’s Ulises Quero, the panel consisted of Carla Vitoria from the Association for Progressive Communication, Lucía Gómez Vicente from the Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, and Nancy Awad from Front Line Defenders, with opening remarks delivered by H.E Ambassador Tormod C. Endresen, the Permanent Representative of Norway. The panel also included a video message by Gerald Kankya from the Business and Human Rights Resources Centre.
Unfortunately, due to visa and recent government funds cuts, many defenders from local organisations were unable to join. This, in addition to the financial barriers imposed by the UN that has made it impossible to ensure remote participation.
Carla Vitoria shared insights on the links between digital authoritarianism and violence offline. Not only are surveillance technologies and internet shutdowns being used to attack human rights, they are also spreading misinformation leading to rape threats, body-shaming, and sexualised disinformation, Vitoria noted. In fact, as common forms of retaliation used to silence defenders, communities like the LGBTQIA+ defenders face threats of corrective rape similarily to reproductive rights defenders who also face stigma campaigns, she added.
The tech-facilitated violence is not confined to the digital realm. There is a continuum from online-to-offline violence. Like all gender and racial-based violence, it often escalates to offline threats, harassment, and physical harm.Carla Vitoria from the Association for Progressive Communication
Hate crimes and online violence lead to attacks offline. Businesses and companies have failed to deal with these threats. Even worse, their policies are usually unregulated making mechanisms to moderate hate driven threats less effective. According to the Association for Progressive Communication, Indigenous communities fighting for rights and lands are attacked directly on their identities online. In fact, digital authoritarianism is also linked to extractivism, using people’s data, accumulating information and surveillance.
Nancy Awad highlighted that although there are positive aspects to digital spaces such as improving the ability of defenders to reach worldwide audiences, documenting concerning human rights violations to raise awareness and hold governments and corporations accountable, these are overshadowed as authoritarianism is on the rise with State repression taking place through criminalisation, surveillance, Internet shutdowns, digital censorship, disinformation and information manipulation.
Social Media platforms’ content moderation policies have increasingly become tools of digital repression.Nancy Awad from Front Line Defenders
Nancy Awad also emphasised the case of Palestinian activists who are attacked, maligned under false information, designated as terrorists; and completely erasing their content on several occasions.
In a video message, Gerald Kankya discussed the many ways in which defenders are attacked through digital tools and how State responses to these actions are often lackluster or even nonexistent, including the involvement of tech companies in these wrongdoings. Kankya shared the example of Kenyan largest telecom operator Safaricom, which was involved in the repression of the 2024 youth protests in Kenya, during which it transferred information about activists drawn from its sim cards to the State, leading to repression.
Kankya spoke about how governments worldwide have been using the NSO group’s Pegasus spyware to facilitate human rights violations and how media and civil society investigations have documented its use in several African countries. He also highlighted a 2023-report from the Institute of Development Studies which found that African governments collectively spend over 1 billion US dollars per year on digital surveillance technologies to monitor their own citizens, often in violation of constitutional, international and domestic laws.
Lucía Gómez underlined the continued historical pattern where those fighting for justice have always been under attack. She tackled the dichotomy that while we see technologies as dangerous, there is a tremendous potential for human rights work in these spaces. In fact, a ‘ tech for good’ approach needs to be implemented. Policies need to be human and victim centered allowing for sustainable response mechanisms, Gómez argued.
This side event came at a crucial time as 197 organisations published an open letter to States urging them to put forward a strong resolution on human rights defenders and digital tools, to be adopted at this session.
In the letter, civil society urges States to ensure the resolution which addresses the protection of human rights defenders from emerging risks resulting from technological trends and shifting online spaces, as identified in the Declaration +25.
Within the same vein, panelists shared their thoughts on what the resolutions should include: the human factor in using technology, adequately assessing and understanding the gaps to choose a good fitting technology, State’s obligations to provide tailored knowledge of risks, technological localised capacity building programs and other practices to increase informed decision making.
The resolution also needs to address human rights defenders’ needs in conflict, the use of artificial intelligence in fragile contexts, and the need for businesses to have responsibilities under international law towards human rights defenders.
ISHR shared a video of human rights defenders’ testimonies collected at RightsCon 2025 in Taiwan, where defenders stressed the need for the resolution to address hate speech and misinformation, sexualised deep fakes, access to information and privacy in the context of conflict and war, human rights principles and international law norms, exercise judicial control, countering cyber crimes, and incorporating a gender and queer perspective.
This side event was co-sponsored by Access Now, Amnesty International, Asian Forum for Human Rights & Development (FORUM-ASIA), Association for Progressive Communications (APC), Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), DefendDefenders (East and Horn of Africa HRD Project), Front Line Defenders, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR), Huridocs, International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World), International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), Peace Brigades International, Privacy International, Protection International, Regional Coalition of WHRDs in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRD MENA Coalition).
ISHR attended RightsCon 2025, the largest global summit on technology and human rights issues, throughout it one clear message stood out: more should be done to protect human rights defenders on and offline and tech companies should be held accountable when their activities contribute human right violations.
Civil society urges States to ensure a resolution at the upcoming 58th session of the UN Human Rights Council addresses the protection of human rights defenders from emerging risks resulting from technological trends and shifting online spaces.
At the end of the Forum, there was one clear message: voluntary commitments are not enough to guarantee corporate accountability, States need to regulate business with binding rules to comprehensively address the human rights abuses committed by businesses.
