Justice out of reach is justice denied. FDJ works to make courts, remedies, and legal support genuinely accessible in the digital era, and advocates for reforms that make the system faster, fairer, and more responsive to digital harms.
The gap we exist to close
Someone arrested over a post does not need a statement of principle. They need a lawyer that week, and most of them cannot pay for one. A right nobody can afford to enforce is a right they do not really have, and the distance between the two is measured in days spent in custody.
The barrier is rarely the law itself. It is the cost of counsel, the distance to the court, the adjournment that turns a week in detention into three months, and the bail condition that requires a civil servant of a particular grade to stand surety — a requirement many defendants simply cannot satisfy, whatever the court intended.
What we provide
We offer legal assistance to journalists, bloggers, human rights defenders, protesters and other individuals facing unlawful arrest, detention, harassment or prosecution arising from their expression and digital civic engagement. It is not general legal aid. It is aid for people whose trouble began with something they published, posted, organised or attended.
Recent examples include securing bail for the musician Ridwan Abiola at the Federal High Court in Lagos, acting as part of the legal team that secured the release of the social critic Denis Odama, and supporting the defence of the journalist Stanley Ugagbe.
Representation is not enough on its own
Getting one person out of custody matters enormously to that person. Changing the provision that put them there is what stops the next arrest. So our litigation, our policy submissions and our public education draw on the same body of cases, and each case is chosen partly for what it can be made to fix.
That includes pressing for the amendment of section 24 of the Cybercrimes Act in line with the ECOWAS Court’s 2022 judgment, for bail conditions that a defendant can realistically meet, and for the publication of laws and records that citizens are expected to obey.
You can read more about how this work operates in practice, or report a case to us.