What Sub-Saharan Africa loses with RightCon’s cancellation

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What Sub-Saharan Africa loses with RightCon’s cancellation

RightsCon is the world’s largest conference on digital rights, and, like many conferences, it comes with an unhealthy number of slide decks and jargon-heavy -’ism’. But RightsCon distinguishes itself in how it pursues its mandate. It began as the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference but has since been deliberately hosted across different regions. The most recent edition, for example, was held in Taiwan, to signal support for online freedom amid concerns over Chinese surveillance. The 2023 edition, held in Costa Rica, was intended to highlight the growing use of surveillance in South America and the state of digital rights development. It was the first time the conference took place in a hybrid format, an important feature, with over 300 delegates, mostly from the Global South, reportedly unable to attend due to visa issues. 

RightsCon takes at least a year to organise. In 2025, when Access Now announced that the next edition would be held in Zambia, it was framed as a move to host the conference in a more accessible location. Earlier this week, just days before the conference, delegates received emails announcing the conference's cancellation. After months of preparation, the Zambian government announced it had "postponed" the conference. 

The most likely reason, as RightsCon has indicated and others have reported, can be summarised as “Zambia's important partner China has concerns with Zambia hosting Taiwanese delegates on infrastructure it had built for it.” China had also recently influenced the cancellation of the Taiwanese president’s trip to Africa by prompting countries along key routes to deny airspace access. 

Since then, the fallout has been chaotic. I have spoken with colleagues with immovable flight tickets and hotel reservations. Sub-Saharan Africa has lost its first RightsCon, and it sets a troubling precedent. It will embolden broader crackdowns on similar gatherings. It will also embolden China, which has long insisted its commercial ties with African countries are apolitical— yet now appears to be leveraging the political capital those relationships have created.

Given that Paradigm’s DRIF was held in Cote d’Ivoire just weeks ago, the real question is not just what is lost with the cancellation of RightsCon 2026, but what it means for Africa’s digital rights ecosystem, the loss of a collective space. RightsCon 2026 is a conference for everyone, but also for the African digital rights community, a sort of recognition and community that now hangs in the balance. 

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