Blog post: Reporting back from Albanian Human Rights conference

A photo of Anjum presenting at the conference

Anjum presenting

Earlier this month, our project founder, Anjum Rahman, spoke at the Empower Talk!: HR30 Forum Inaugural Conference in Albania. HR30 refers to the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This conference focused on human rights abuses in countries around the world, including the shutting down of civil society organisations and criminalising of those challenging Islamophobia in France, various threats to life and loss of liberty in India, Myanmar (Burma), the Uighur community in China, and other countries; the rise of Hindutva extremism in Sri Lanka; and so much more.

It was an amazing opportunity for us to hear from others what is happening around the world and to share the work that we have been doing, highlighting:
  • the core values that underpin our work, including Indigenous rights, tino rangatiratanga, and harnessing the depth of knowledge within communities;
  • the importance of collective action;
  • our experiences prior to and after the Christchurch mosques attacks;
  • the amount of money being into social disruption and inciting hatred in online spaces, which means we need to have an equal level of investment in peacebuilding;
  • the need for effective regulation of online spaces, focused on systems and not individual pieces of content.
A photo of Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama

Prime Minister of Albania Edi Rama

Anjum also spoke about the current context in which human rights advocates are working, including that facts don’t matter, so we need to begin with relationships and emotional connections before presenting facts, that many states are more hostile and have lost all semblance of decency and fair engagement, so we need to stop engaging with them in a way that assumes a rules-based governance structure; changing the framing of discussions to centre on a rights-based approach, and being unapologetic in using such an approach.

We are grateful for the opportunity to share our kaupapa on the world stage, and to bring the stories back home to share and empower those working to strengthen human rights in Aotearoa!