As part of the 30th Forum 2000 Conference in Prague, we continue A Life in Democracy, a series of conversations exploring the experiences, resilience and convictions of those working to defend democracy and open societies. In this edition, we speak with Shoeb Abdullah, a Bangladeshi digital rights and human rights activist, co-founder of Activate Rights and the Bangladesh Protest Archive, whose work has focused on internet freedom, civic rights and preserving evidence of human rights violations during Bangladesh’s 2024 July Uprising.
For Shoeb, the uprising was not only a defining political moment, but a deeply personal one. In this conversation, he reflects on what drove a generation of young Bangladeshis to take to the streets despite repression, how the experience transformed his own understanding of democracy, and why preserving evidence became essential to the struggle for accountability and justice. He speaks about the power of collective action, the importance of remaining faithful to the original demands for freedom and democratic choice, and the responsibility to protect those gains after a movement succeeds. At just 27, his message to other young activists is rooted in his own experience: democratic change may take different forms and different amounts of time, but courage, solidarity and persistence can turn frustration into meaningful political change.
