Telecoms and Human Rights

In July 2011 FairPensions teamed up with our new member organisation, New York based digital rights campaigners Access, to mobilise shareholders over the issue of telecommunication companies ("telecoms") and human rights abuses. Recent events in the Middle East have shone a spotlight on the role that telecoms have played in the suppression of pro-democracy movements.

In January, in response to mass demonstrations calling for the end of the Mubarrak regime, the Egyptian government ordered all telecoms to shut down their mobile and internet services. Vodafone and two other companies (Mobinil and Etisalat) complied with the order. This shutdown impeded efforts to organise protests, and it prevented victims of violence from making emergency phone calls.

Vodafone, in particular, was widely and publicly criticised for this decision. In response it argued that it was legally obliged to comply with the Egyptian government's orders or face the imprisonment of its employees and suspension of its operating licence.

In addition to proving that regimes will exploit people's reliance on the internet and mobile phones to repress pro-democracy movements, these events, and the public backlash against Vodafone, prove that telecoms who find themselves unwilling accessories to human rights abuses face potentially significant reputational and financial costs.

Access has developed a five step action plan (see page 4 of our briefing) that would prevent telecoms from having their hand forced by repressive regimes.

FairPensions has teamed up with Access to raise this issue among investors so that they press telecoms on whether they have learned from Vodafone's experience in Egypt and have developed a response plan if they were to face a similar demand. As part of the campaign we:

• organised a proxy for Brett Solomon, Executive Director of Access to enable him to attend the Vodafone AGM and ask the directors in person whether they would carry out a human rights audit in each of the countries in which Vodafone operates and whether they would implement the action plan;
• prepared and distributed a briefing for investors highlighting the risks facing telecoms operating in politically unstable countries and setting out a series of questions for investors to ask;
• co-ordinated media coverage to keep this issue high on the agenda of investors and telecoms; and
• together with Access, spoken with a number of UK and international investors about this issue.

FairPensions and Access continue to monitor this important investor and human rights issue. If you want to stay up to date with this campaign and our other work let us know.