Building Collective Resistance to Shrinking Civic Spaces in the Asia-Pacific

• Civil society across the Asia-Pacific is navigating shrinking civic spaces, funding cuts, and digital threats while fostering resilience through collective action.
• 2026 Digital Rights Asia-Pacific Assembly (DRAPAC) served as a hub for human rights defenders, technologists, and journalists to co-create resources.
• Advocacy strategies focus on community empowerment, legal intervention, and digital security training to counter surveillance, censorship, and gender-based online violence.
• Experts urge a "right to refusal" regarding exclusionary AI and biometric systems, advocating for public-first guardrails and intersectional digital governance.

Regional Strategies and Community Empowerment

• India: Groups like Servelots use local craft centers to mobilize marginalized women, while the Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) creates self-sustaining digital entrepreneurship models.
• Philippines: The Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) focuses on digital hygiene for women human rights defenders and documentation of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV).
• Myanmar: Despite intense digital censorship and threats, the Myanmar Internet Project (MIP) provides critical digital security training and documents repression for international reporting.
• Nepal: Organizations like Body & Data curate feminist spaces such as "Chiya Charcha" to mend activist isolation and build collective defense mechanisms.
• Taiwan: The Feminist Leadership and Mobilization on the Edge (FLAME) successfully advocated for legal reforms against image-based sexual abuse, framing it as a structural gender justice issue.

Emerging Digital Challenges

• AI and Exclusion: New biometric and digital welfare systems often deepen inequalities; advocates demand transparency and community-governed data repositories.
• Need for Solidarity: Experts emphasize that digital rights cannot be separated from broader social issues like migration, disability, and gender justice.
• Future Outlook: Successful resistance depends on building broader coalitions that move beyond issue-specific campaigns to challenge the political and economic forces governing digital spaces.