Dear friend of HRMI,

We were supposed to be in Lusaka this week, five of us joining 3000 other human rights advocates at RightsCon 2026 in Zambia. As many of you will have heard, the entire conference was cancelled with just days’ notice following pressure from China on the Zambian government.

You can read RightsCon’s account of what happened here, as well as HRMI’s statement of solidarity here (written before the cause of the cancellation was fully known).  

This is not just a logistical disruption. It is an internationally significant attack on civic space, and, as Mouna Ben garga has written, on the ability of human rights defenders to gather together at all. In an age of video calls and remote work, there is still no substitute for meeting face to face. We had been looking forward to building new relationships, learning directly from grassroots experts, and exploring new ways our data can support those driving change – not to mention meeting each other, in some cases for the first time in person! 

In response, we’re creating space to connect in a different way, and we warmly invite you to drop in.  

This week, we’re hosting a series of informal online gatherings. Our ‘Wish we were at RightsCon’ Virtual Coffee Hours will take place twice across May 5th and 6th, at different times to suit a range of time zones. These sessions are an opportunity to meet our team, learn more about HRMI's work and goals, and ask any questions you may have. We are assembling experts from across the team to be available to chat and would be delighted to connect with as many of you as possible, whether or not you were going to be participating at RightsCon.  

So, if you are curious about how human rights data can drive change, if you were hoping to bump into us in Lusaka, or if you have been a long-time-listener and want to become a first-time-caller, please do join us.  

REGISTER HERE for our Virtual Coffee Hour #1

Time: 4PM EST (5 May) / 8PM GMT (5 May) / 9PM CET (5 May) 10PM CAT (5 May) / 1:30AM IST (6 May) / 4AM BKK (6 May) / 8AM NZT (6 May) 

REGISTER HERE for our Virtual Coffee Hour #2 

Time: 9AM EST (6 May) / 1PM GMT (6 May) / 2PM CET (6 May) 3PM CAT (6 May) / 6:30PM IST (6 May) / 8PM BKK (6 May) / 1AM NZT (7 May) 

In other news:

Stay tuned for more news from HRMI in coming weeks, including: 

• New scores for 200 countries and territories due to be published in June 
• Upcoming webinars and public launch events 
• Our new 'Voices behind the data' video conversation series featuring HRMI's team and ambassadors sharing critical insights into whats going on in the human rights landscape at the ground level.

Support our work

HRMI is doing impactful work with very limited resources, and we are delighted to see the global coverage, recognition, and use that our data is getting. Building on our people power and expertise, HRMI is poised to scale its global and thematic reach.  

Our aim is to measure every country’s performance of every human right in international law.  

But we cannot do this alone. We need sustained operational funding to increase our resiliency and strengthen our capacity to ensure the continuity of the Rights Tracker, HRMI’s ground-breaking digital public good.    

 
If you can help with suggestions of potential funders or by making a small donation to HRMI yourself, please get in touch by replying to this email or visiting our donations page.