Zambia: Last-minute postponement of RightsCon appears a brazen act of Chinese transnational repression which must be resisted

Amnesty International strongly condemns the Zambian government for open-endedly “postponing” RightsCon – the largest global digital human rights conference, which was due to start today in Lusaka and online – after allegedly being pressured by Chinese diplomats. Conference organizers Access Now have confirmed they believe “foreign interference” was behind the last-minute postponement. According to their statement, officials from Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science had communicated that they were under pressure from Chinese diplomats over, among others, the participation of Taiwanese civil society, prior to the Zambian authorities’ decision to postpone the event.