The cancellation of RightsCon 2026, which was due to take place in Zambia and online, is more than the loss of an important international conference. It is a warning sign for all those concerned with civic space, participation and the right of communities to be heard.
RightsCon has long been one of the most important global spaces for digital rights defenders, civil society organisations, journalists, technologists, human rights advocates and affected communities to come together, exchange, and address the future of civic freedoms in an increasingly digital and contested world.
Access Now has stated that “foreign interference is the reason RightsCon 2026 won’t proceed in Zambia or online.” It further reported that, on 27 April, its team was told by Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science that diplomats from the People’s Republic of China were putting pressure on the Government of Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join in person.
This raises a fundamental question, one that sits at the heart of UNPO’s founding purpose: who has the right to be present in international spaces? Who has the right to enter a room, speak in their own name, describe what is happening to their people, and participate in shaping a different future?
For the peoples and communities UNPO works with, the answer has never been straightforward.
Many of the communities within and around UNPO’s network, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Southern Mongolians, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese civil society actors, and many others across four continents, know what it means to have their identity, their rights, and even their presence contested in international spaces. They know that exclusion rarely begins with silence. It begins with pressure: pressure on organisers, venues, governments, funders, families, institutions and platforms.
RightsCon was not a state negotiation. It was not a diplomatic summit. It was a civil society space. A place where human rights defenders, digital rights advocates, journalists, technologists and affected communities were meant to gather, exchange and speak freely.
If the participation of Taiwanese civil society can be treated as grounds for making such a space impossible, then the issue is not only about Taiwan. It is about the ability of any community considered politically sensitive by a powerful state to be present, visible and heard.
This pattern is neither new nor limited to a single government. States have long treated independent voices, at home and abroad, as threats to be managed rather than interlocutors to be heard. Peoples who have lived through colonisation, occupation, forced assimilation or systematic exclusion know this history well. The power to silence has often travelled across borders.
What is changing today is the scale, speed and impunity with which this power is exercised. Diplomatic pressure, economic dependency, digital surveillance, visa restrictions, lawfare, and intimidation can now combine to make civic space unsafe even beyond national borders. No single government holds a monopoly on these tools, and the international community has so far failed to develop adequate protections against their use. For unrepresented peoples, the consequences are particularly acute.
Many already lack formal diplomatic representation. Many cannot speak freely at home. Many face repression, surveillance, criminalisation or threats to their families when they attempt to document violations, defend their identity, or participate in political life. International civic spaces are therefore not secondary or supplementary channels. They are often among the only peaceful avenues available to make their realities visible, build alliances, and participate in decisions that affect their futures. This is the deeper issue the cancellation of RightsCon brings into focus.
It is not only a question of freedom of expression or freedom of association, though it is certainly both. It is a question of whether peoples excluded from formal international structures retain a meaningful right to participate in the international conversation at all. UNPO’s position is clear: they do.
That right may be suppressed in many contexts, but it is not extinguished. It is the foundation on which civic space, peaceful representation, and long-term stability all depend. When civic space closes, peoples are silenced. When peoples are silenced, grievances go unheard. And when grievances go unheard through peaceful channels, the possibility of peaceful solutions weakens.
UNPO stands in solidarity with Access Now, the RightsCon community, Taiwanese civil society participants, and all those whose participation, safety and visibility have been affected by this cancellation. We stand in particular with those communities who know too well what it means to have their presence questioned, their voices restricted, and their rights treated as inconvenient.
The response to this moment cannot be silence. There must be a stronger commitment to protecting civic space from foreign interference, and a clearer recognition that peoples excluded from formal international forums hold a right to meaningful participation that no state pressure can legitimately extinguish. Defending that right is not only a matter of principle. It is a condition for the kind of inclusive, representative international order that makes peaceful futures possible.
