5.4 - Human Rights Day 2024

Maryam Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini-Danish human rights activist. It seems to run in the family because She is also the daughter of Bahraini human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and former co-director of the Gulf Center for Human Rights. She is currently the Special Advisor on Advocacy with the GCHR, and works as a consultant with NGOs.

Roger Dingledine is an American computer scientist known for having co-founded the Tor Project and he still works there as a project Leader, Director, and Research Director.The Tor Project develops and maintains The Tor Browser system, also known as The Onion Router, a free, open source and sophisticated privacy tool that provides anonymity for web surfing and communication. Hear about this and their latest development 'Snowflake'.

Gbenga Sesa is the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative, a non-profit organisation that works to connect under-served young Africans with digital opportunities and ensures the protection of their online rights. Having grown his career from local volunteering to the global stage, where he is currently shaping and influencing tech policies, his drive to effect positive change, empower young Africans, and ensure none is denied the opportunity to use a computer has propelled him into various leadership roles in the tech sphere.

Marwa Fatafta leads Access Now’s policy and advocacy work on digital rights in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Her work spans a number of issues at the nexus of human rights and technology including content governance and platform accountability, online censorship, digital surveillance, and transnational repression.

Costanza Sciubba Caniglia is an expert in information integrity and leads Wikimedia Foundation’s anti-disinformation strategy.  Wikipedia relies on 250,000 volunteers worldwide who edit anonymously. Truth Keepers in the face of powerful forces.

Chihhao Yu is a software engineer and information designer, and co-director of the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG) based here in Taipei, where he works to safeguard election integrity and build democratic resilience in Taiwan. He is also a contributor to g0v (“gov-zero”), Taiwan’s civic hacking community, and an organiser of Facing the Ocean, a West Pacific civic hacking network.

Charles Mok is a Research Scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, and a board member of the International Centre for Trade Transparency and Monitoring. 

Lobsang Gyatso Sither is the Director of Technology at the Tibet Action Institute working in exile as a highly experienced digital security trainer. He talks to us about some of the issues within his home country and how the Tibetan Government in exile is hoping for the best but preparing for the worst under Chinese occupation.

Aws Al-Saadi is an advisory board member of International Fact-Checking Network and the Founder and President of Tech4Peace. He talks to TWICS about the rise of fake news and how to counter it.

 Hadi Al Khatib is an archivist and activist who’s been collecting, verifying, and investigating citizen-generated data as evidence of human rights violations since 2011. His project, The Syrian Archive, exposes and draws attention to human rights violations committed by all sides of the Syrian conflict, and ensures that journalists and lawyers are able to use the verified data for their investigations and criminal case-building