Human rights groups have called on the United Nations to investigate why a video and transcript of their event at a flagship UN forum on internet policies, held in Riyadh, were removed online.
The workshop, co-hosted by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Alqst on Wednesday afternoon at the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in the capital of Saudi Arabia, focused on the UN’s new cybercrime treaty and its potential impact on transnational repression.
The panel was notable for a couple of reasons. It was the first time in nearly a decade that HRW had sent representatives to the kingdom.
It also featured Saudi Arabian activist Lina al-Hathloul, one of few, if any, Saudi civil society leaders speaking at the forum held next to the Ritz-Carlton hotel where Saudi royals, officials and business people were detained and tortured in 2017.
A moment of silence was held at the start of the event for human rights defenders across the region who had been punished for expressing themselves online, including Assad and Mohammed al-Ghamdi and Nora al-Qahtani, held in Saudi prisons on decades-long sentences over social media posts.
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Hathloul spoke remotely, saying she was concerned for her safety in the kingdom. She noted the travel bans imposed on her family, including her sister, the women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, since 2018.
She told the audience that Saudi Arabia was “a cautionary tale” that showed how the UN’s cybercrime treaty could be weaponised “in the hands of governments that are already using cyber crime laws to suppress dissent”.
“Civil society can no longer speak independently, and those who dare to express what the authorities consider dissent are often silenced through imprisonment or worse,” Hathloul said.
Hathloul, who is Alqst’s head of monitoring and advocacy, noted in particular the discovery of a Saudi state security watch list called “Watch Upon Return”, which she said monitors the accounts of Saudis abroad in order to target them upon their return home.
‘We couldn’t just come here, talk about the normal IGF topics, and leave crucial voices like Lina’s out of the discussion’
– Deborah Brown, Human Rights Watch
Deborah Brown, HRW’s deputy director for technology and human rights, who spoke on the Riyadh panel, said Hathloul’s intervention was “quite historic and remarkable”.
“After the session, I thought, wow, Lina spoke to a room in Riyadh,” Brown told Middle East Eye. “I think it was important to do. We couldn’t just come here, talk about the normal IGF (Internet Governance Forum) topics, and leave crucial voices like Lina’s out of the discussion.”
But on Thursday, video and transcript of the event that had been uploaded online, with links shared widely – including by Hathloul – disappeared. Several hours later, a new video of the event was uploaded.
HRW and Hathloul have now asked the UN and the IGF for an explanation.
Middle East Eye asked the UN IGF’s media contacts if anyone had requested that the video and transcript be removed and on what basis they were deleted.
A spokesperson on Friday responded: “There may be several reasons why videos or transcripts are not on the website or re-posted.”
“The secretariat will in the course of the next week or so (holidays not withstanding) be tabulating/ correcting transcription errors, correctly titling and trimming videos to remove dead space etc. to make them more organised, and easily searchable.”
Fears confirmed
This is the second significant UN gathering that Saudi Arabia has hosted in recent weeks, including the UN Convention to Combat Desertification meeting held in the kingdom earlier in December.
More than 70 digital and human rights organisations, including Alqst, wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last October, asking him to reverse the decision to allow Saudi Arabia to host the meeting.
They voiced concerns that Saudi civil society representatives would not be able to participate freely and safely given the kingdom’s human rights record.
Hathloul said the deleted video and transcript on Thursday confirmed their fears: “Our warnings and condemnations were not baseless,” she said.
“This was a stark reminder of the extent to which regimes like Saudi Arabia will go to leverage internet governance as a means of suppressing dissent and controlling narratives.”
She called on the UN to launch a transparent investigation into what happened, saying that the responsibility to protect online and offline participants “rests with the event organisers and the host authorities”.
‘How can we discuss internet governance if freedom of expression and security are undermined at the very forums meant to uphold them?’
– Lina Hathloul, Alqst
“How can we discuss internet governance if freedom of expression and security are undermined at the very forums meant to uphold them?” Hathloul said.
“I shudder to think about what might have happened if I had been there in person.”
An HRW representative told MEE that the UN and the IGF have a responsibility to uphold rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech, assembly and association.
“This is critically important particularly at UN supported events in states that do not have a good record on human rights,” they said.
“We went to great lengths to bring voices of Saudi civil society who were unable to join due to their legitimate safety and security concerns to the conference remotely. It’s deeply disappointing to see that their testimony has apparently been removed so quickly after the event.”
Brown said she has now attended nine IGF gatherings, including ones held in Baku, in Azerbaijan, and Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt.
“For me, the point is that this isn’t the first time we’ve had an IGF in a place with an incredibly problematic human rights record,” she said.
“But it’s the worst that I’ve seen it affect the dynamics at the IGF itself. Instead of learning from the past, the situation is only getting worse.”
