Human Rights Online Philippines

Freedom of Expression Conference or FreeXP.con2 is second instalment of the Free XP.con including 7th Human Rights Pinduteros Choice Awards of the Human Rights Online Philippines held last 1-2 December 2017 in Quezon City that gathered 46 human rights defenders, journalists and bloggers.

FreeXP.con2 will highlight the situation of freedom of opinion and expression (FoE) in the Philippines, which continues to be under threat with impunity. From human rights defenders, media and journalists, bloggers and individuals who are critical of the government are subjected to rampant and highly coordinated “trolling”, online abuse and smear campaign, in order to seed disinformation and foment targeted attacks, which undermines enjoyment of their right to freedom of expression, and democracy in the Philippines.  This onslaught of online abuse represents a real threat to the freedom of expression both online and offline, psychological and even the physical safety of human rights defenders, journalists and individuals critical of the government.

Free XP.con2 will explore some of these trends with human rights defenders, legal experts, journalists and victims of reported online abuse in the Philippines. The conference will provide venue for sharing of experiences and responses to the online threats and disinformation, and generating evidence-based concrete platform of actions in defending the FoE against the culture of impunity and a system set-up to silence dissent in the country.

Free XP.con including 7th Human Rights Pinduteros, a milestone event of the HRonlinePH project, “Protection and empowerment of human rights defenders in the Philippines” with support of the British Embassy Manila under its British Embassy Programme Fund.