GoKawiilTo our community,
We are devastated to be writing to you instead of gathering together as planned and we know we’re not alone. The frustration and disappointment stemming from the loss of RightsCon 2026 is felt deeply by all of us, especially our partners in the region who worked tirelessly alongside our team.
Following our April 29 announcement, we at Access Now, the host organization of RightsCon, believe it is important to be transparent about the context that led to the decision. We want to explain, where we can (taking into account the safety of those involved), why this announcement was made on such short notice, only days before we were set to welcome more than 2,600 participants in person, and 1,100 online, representing over 150 countries and 750 institutions.
We believe foreign interference is the reason RightsCon 2026 won’t proceed in Zambia or online.
When we select a host location, we follow a rigorous, multi-year process — one we’ve strengthened through community consultations — that weighs the country’s geographic region, event infrastructure, security environment, visa accessibility, and importantly, the openness of local government stakeholders, who are, alongside civil society, among our most essential partners in ensuring the success of such a large convening.
Our decision to choose Zambia was not coincidental. In 2023, we made a commitment to bring RightsCon back to the African continent. Hosting RightsCon in Lusaka was not only about honoring that commitment, but also about recognizing the strength, resilience, and global significance of Africa’s digital rights community.
Our team first visited the country in 2024 and returned for two additional site visits before arriving on April 27, 2026 for RightsCon. We coordinated closely with Government of Zambia officials every step of the way: we publicly signed an MoU with the Ministry of Technology and Science (MoTS), our primary government partner, and received a separate, signed invitation for participants requiring visas. At the same time, we established working relationships with the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Information and Media (MIM), and the Department of Immigration. On the ground, we met with high-ranking officials to regularly report on progress and when we weren’t in Lusaka, we convened online meetings, continuously briefing them about the scope of the conference, the breadth of its program, and the diversity of its participants. We coordinated closely on our agreed process for facilitating eVisa applications, with no concerns about applicants raised.
On April 27, one day after a government press release endorsed RightsCon, we received a phone call from MoTS about an urgent issue and were told that diplomats from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were putting pressure on the Government of Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person. This development was extremely concerning and we immediately pushed back. Next, we opened up lines of communication with our Taiwanese participants, as is our practice when there is a potential risk for a specific community. While we needed more information, we continued to feel confident this was something we could address with the government.
Shortly after this call, we received reports of immigration officers telling participants as they arrived that RightsCon had been cancelled. These developments were taking place on the eve of a public holiday in Zambia and despite persistent outreach to our government contacts throughout the evening and next day, we heard nothing until an informal, cryptic call from a trusted senior official at MoTS, who told us on Tuesday, April 28 that he had been asked to share that RightsCon would be cancelled or postponed. He faltered on where the decision was coming from or why. We pressed for clarification and pushed back, prompting the MoTS official to request our program and participant list. Once again, we shared publicly available information, which they had been given in prior meetings, but received no further response – informal or otherwise.
At 9:33pm Lusaka time, on April 28, a national public holiday, local state-owned media announced that the government had “postponed” RightsCon. Our team was shocked: despite an established partnership and previously open lines of communication, a decision was made by the government without consultation or formal notice. We had no prior knowledge of the publication of the news article, nor any opportunity to comment.
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