Just days before RightsCon 2026, a major annual international human rights and digital freedom summit, was set to open its doors in Lusaka, Zambia, U.S.-based organizers announced the full cancellation of the event, citing foreign interference and pressure from Beijing that forced Zambian officials to bar Taiwanese civil society delegates from participating.
Access Now, the New York-headquartered digital rights advocacy group that hosts the yearly summit, confirmed the cancellation late Friday, reversing months of planning that was expected to draw more than 3,700 in-person and online attendees from over 150 countries around the globe. The organization said the cancellation followed a last-minute announcement from the Zambian government that the summit would be postponed, with informal communications later revealing the condition for lifting the postponement: Access Now would have to censor specific discussion topics and bar at-risk communities, including Taiwanese participants, from joining both in-person and virtually.
“We believe foreign interference is the reason RightsCon 2026 won’t proceed in Zambia,” Access Now said in its official statement. The group added that it repeatedly rejected any demands to exclude delegates based on political pressure, making the summit unable to move forward.
Initially, the Zambian government framed its move as a routine check to ensure the summit’s themes aligned with the country’s “national values, policy priorities and broader public interest considerations.” But the context of Zambia’s deep political and economic ties to China, rooted in large-scale Chinese investment in the country’s lucrative mining sector, makes the reported pressure consistent with Beijing’s long-standing diplomatic position on Taiwan.
China adheres to the one-China principle, which claims the self-governing island of Taiwan as an inalienable part of its territory, and requires all countries that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Beijing to cut off official and formal engagements with Taipei. China has built extensive economic and diplomatic influence across the African continent over the past two decades, giving it significant leverage over policy decisions in many African nations.
The cancellation of RightsCon marks the second high-profile incident involving Chinese diplomatic pressure on Taiwan in southern Africa in less than two weeks. Just one week prior, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s planned official visit to Eswatini — the only African country that maintains formal diplomatic relations with Taipei — was derailed after China pressured Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles to withdraw overflight clearance for Lai’s aircraft. After that initial setback, Lai announced a surprise, unannounced arrival in Eswatini on Saturday, posting on social media platform X that “Taiwan will never be deterred by external pressures.”
Taiwan’s Digital Minister Lin Yi-jing linked the two incidents, saying in a Facebook statement Saturday that the cancellation of RightsCon, which was hosted last year in Taipei, exposes Beijing’s discomfort with the values of freedom, democracy and rule of law that both Taiwan and the summit represent. RightsCon has built a reputation over its years of operation as a leading global forum to discuss pressing digital rights issues including internet censorship, electronic mass surveillance, the global rise of cyberwarfare, and digital exclusion of marginalized communities.
Human Rights Watch, the leading global non-profit human rights organization, has called on Zambian authorities to issue a full public explanation for their decision to postpone and ultimately scuttle the summit. As of Sunday, the Zambian government has not issued any further comment responding to the allegations of pressure from China.