Events

Current and Upcoming

Michael Katagaya - Digital Suppression and the Right to Political Participation

November 16, 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
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Uris Hall (Calder Lounge), Columbia University, 3022 Broadway, New York

Event Description

Democratic participation now increasingly depends on digital infrastructure — connectivity, platforms, information environments, and the civil society networks that monitor them. International human rights law has left that infrastructure under-theorised as a condition of political participation, carries no binding effect for the states that impose it, and states across Africa and beyond have learned to suppress it, with consequences that run past election day into the everyday accountability citizens exercise over public services. In this talk, the speaker will explore how human rights accountability frameworks must be redesigned to capture, measure, and remedy state-directed digital suppression as a violation of the right to political participation, and what Africa's electoral experience contributes to building them.

Event Speaker

Michael Katagaya, Team Leader at Evidence And Methods Lab

Event Information

Free and open to the public; registration recommended. Please email [email protected] for additional information.

Hosted by the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University.