INTRODUCTION

How did the concept of human rights online formally emerge within the United Nations Human Rights Council? This chapter outlines how advocacy for freedom of expression and the Internet, by civil society groups and governments alike, helped to bring the Internet into the mainstream of the international human rights system. Through a series of careful, well-planned steps, new standards began to emerge that would crystallise the definition of an Internet-related human rights violation, culminating in the simple premise that the same human rights we have offline also apply online.

MAKING THE CONCEPTUAL LINK: FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND THE INTERNET

Although I had followed the crowds and events in Tahrir Square from afar, nothing had prepared me for the sound of their voices. I was in Geneva, participating in a panel organised by Freedom House, one of the few Internet-focussed NGOs active in the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). There I was introduced to a co-speaker, Rasha Abdullah, an Egyptian legal academic from the American University in Cairo. Her cell phone happened to ring as we were introduced, and the air between us was suddenly filled with voices chanting ‘Ya ahalina endamo lina’ (Friends and family, come join us). As I reacted with surprise, Rasha beamed, explaining that it was a recording, from a few weeks earlier, of those marching to Tahrir Square; thousands of people calling in unison for others to join them. Those voices were so incredibly powerful that I can still hear them whenever I think of her.

My APC colleagues and I were in Geneva planning the Connect Your Rights campaign launch at a side event. We had invited Manal Hassan, co-founder, with Alaa Abd El-Fattah, of the award-winning Egyptian blog Manaala, because we felt that evidence of what had happened in Egypt ought to come from those who were there. We also brought speakers from other countries, each of whom could attest to the global trend of interference with freedom of expression and freedom of association on the Internet: Shahzad Ahmad, founder of the Pakistani group Bytes For All; Marina Maria, from Sexuality Policy Watch in Brazil; and Desiree Milosevic from Afilias.