Government put their national interest ahead of NGO organisations should not come as a surprise to anyone.
This reads like a failing part on the organisers to manage such risk, and decided to kick up a stink about it instead of implementing a fallback strategy.
Fun fact: Zambia’s GDP per capita was greater than China’s in 1975. So there’s a parallel universe where a human rights conference in China gets cancelled because of Zambian influence.
> We are disappointed that our international participants won’t get to experience the Zambia we have come to know through our planning for RightsCon
This strikes as a bit naive. Like a bunch of kids who saw a Disney movie about Zambia and then decided to go there have a RightsCon. Have they seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Zambia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Zambia? I could see if they wanted to sponsor an action there or protest or something but it's unrealistic expecting RightsCon to go without issues there. Unless... the whole point was to show that Zambia would never allow this and they just wanted to "expose it".
As much as the west has been shooting itself in the foot lately, discovering that they are still much less subject to interference sounds like a lesson that could have been had for way less money
One of the key reasons that college campuses no longer talk about Tibet and certainly don't talk about Taiwan or dare I even mention the Uygers or anything else mainland China related is of course that Chinese influence is a 10,000 pound gorilla. When you look at it more closely you realize Qatar, Turkey, Iran, and Russia influence campaigns all perfectly complement China's objectives to avoid themselves being a focus on human rights related topics
Well you can also read around CIA propaganda these days much easier. Maybe this overlaps with the influence campaigns other countries push, but it's not like we actually had humanitarian interest to begin with.
All of this sums up why trust and risk concerns are so important. For example if you put your money into a bank in a country that might not exist tomorrow you might wish you had instead put your money into Chase, depending on what events ensue... those Bankers in that other country might charm you up the Wazoo but at the end of the day trust and risk concerns truly matter
What the [Zambian] government wanted ... in order for RightsCon to continue, we would have to moderate specific topics and exclude communities at risk, including our Taiwanese participants, from in-person and online participation.
We invested months in building government relationships focused precisely on transparency and mutual understanding, including explicit conversations about the diversity of our community ...
This was our red line. Not because we were unwilling to engage, but because the conditions set before us were unacceptable and counter to what RightsCon is and what Access Now stands for.
Government put their national interest ahead of NGO organisations should not come as a surprise to anyone.
This reads like a failing part on the organisers to manage such risk, and decided to kick up a stink about it instead of implementing a fallback strategy.
They were not told of any issues until 8 days before the event, this week, after talking to government officials since 2024.
What would your “fallback” be, eight days out? Very curious.
Change the physical conference into a virtual one, this way it respects the speakers, allow people to mingle and ideas to flourish.
It's no replacement for an in-person conference, but this approach is better than straight up cancelling everything.
Fun fact: Zambia’s GDP per capita was greater than China’s in 1975. So there’s a parallel universe where a human rights conference in China gets cancelled because of Zambian influence.
Is there any other African country that’s not this beholden to China?
Who cares what flag capital operates under if you're fucked either way?
Is there any other country that’s not this beholden to China? Welcome to 2026.
Mauritius for one.
> We are disappointed that our international participants won’t get to experience the Zambia we have come to know through our planning for RightsCon
This strikes as a bit naive. Like a bunch of kids who saw a Disney movie about Zambia and then decided to go there have a RightsCon. Have they seen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBTQ_rights_in_Zambia and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Zambia? I could see if they wanted to sponsor an action there or protest or something but it's unrealistic expecting RightsCon to go without issues there. Unless... the whole point was to show that Zambia would never allow this and they just wanted to "expose it".
Related:
Largest Digital Human Rights Conference Suddenly Canceled
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47964996
This is why more well known human rights conferences are held in places like Denmark, Sweden and Norway.
Where a huge percentage of participants will have trouble getting visas
Just don't mention Israel.
This sounds like a South Park episode
As much as the west has been shooting itself in the foot lately, discovering that they are still much less subject to interference sounds like a lesson that could have been had for way less money
One of the key reasons that college campuses no longer talk about Tibet and certainly don't talk about Taiwan or dare I even mention the Uygers or anything else mainland China related is of course that Chinese influence is a 10,000 pound gorilla. When you look at it more closely you realize Qatar, Turkey, Iran, and Russia influence campaigns all perfectly complement China's objectives to avoid themselves being a focus on human rights related topics
Well you can also read around CIA propaganda these days much easier. Maybe this overlaps with the influence campaigns other countries push, but it's not like we actually had humanitarian interest to begin with.
All of this sums up why trust and risk concerns are so important. For example if you put your money into a bank in a country that might not exist tomorrow you might wish you had instead put your money into Chase, depending on what events ensue... those Bankers in that other country might charm you up the Wazoo but at the end of the day trust and risk concerns truly matter
tl;dr - It appears that the PRC pressured Zambian officials due to Taiwanese participation in RightsCon.
There's more.
This is so performative.
It’s “performative” to notify attendees of an international conference scheduled for next week that it will be cancelled?
It's "performative" to explain why?
Do explain.
Another Xi bot on HN. Look forward to dang telling us how it’s not a problem (again).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47891877
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47779056