Zambian conference cancelled over Chinese pressure

The US-based organisers of an international human rights conference in Zambia said they cancelled it days before it was due to open because China pressured the African host country to exclude Taiwanese activists, reports ABC News. Organisers Access Now, a New York-based advocacy group, said late Friday it had cancelled the RightsCon summit in Zambia that was due to take place next week after the Zambian Government initially said it was postponed. Access Now said it had been informed by Zambian officials that the government had been pressured by China over the conference ‘because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to join us in person’. Access Now said it pushed back on any move to exclude delegates from Taiwan. ‘We believe foreign interference is the reason RightsCon 2026 won’t proceed in Zambia,’ Access Now said. The Zambian Government earlier announced it was postponing the conference because it wanted information on the themes and topics of discussion to ensure they aligned with the country's ‘national values, policy priorities and broader public interest considerations’. Zambia has strong political and economic ties with China, largely through Chinese mining interests in the mineral-rich southern African nation.

RightsCon is an annual conference focused on human rights and technology and deals with issues like internet censorship, electronic surveillance and cyberwarfare. More than 2 600 participants were due to attend in Zambia, with another 1 100 attending online, Access Now said. They represented more than 150 countries. Taiwanese Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-jing said in a statement on Facebook on Saturday that the cancellation of the summit showed China’s unease over ‘the ideas of freedom, democracy and rule of law that Taiwan and RightsCon represent’. Human Rights Watch said Zambian authorities should explain their actions. The move by the Zambian Government came just a week after Taiwan claimed that Beijing intervened to stop Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te from visiting another southern African country, eSwatini on 22 April. Lai's visit to eSwatini, the only African nation that maintains formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, was called off after the Indian Ocean islands of Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles were pressured by China to withdraw permission for Lai's plane to fly over their territory, Taiwan said. Taiwanese leader Lai, however, made a surprise announcement on Saturday that he had arrived in eSwatini after the first visit was called off, according to ABC News. This time, Lai had not announced publicly that he was travelling. BBC News reports that Lai's visit to eSwatini - Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in Africa - followed ‘days of careful arrangements by the diplomatic and national security teams’, he said, without giving further details on how he reached the country. China described the visit as a ‘stowaway-style escape farce’. Taiwan's delegation also included Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung and National Security Council Adviser Alex Huang, according to its presidential office.

Full ABC News report

Full BBC News report