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	Fighting back for human rights by SABC, International Federation for Human Rights South Africa   23 August 2016   The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), together with its member organisations, Lawyers for Human Rights in South Africa, DITSHWANELO – The Botswana Centre for Human Rights in Botswana and Zimrights in Zimbabwe, is holding, under the high patronage of Desmond Tutu, its 39th Congress in Johannesburg from 23 to 27 August 2016.   This unique event will be attended by the 178 FIDH member organisations, gathering more than 400 human rights defenders from around the world.   “It is the third time, after Dakar in 1997 and Casablanca in 2001 that FIDH has decided to hold its Congress in Africa. We didn''t choose South Africa by chance. This country plays a growing and key role at the continental level and at the same time has to cope with major internal challenges,” stated Karim Lahidji, FIDH President and added, ”Organising our Congress in Johannesburg means paying tribute to the South African civil society which, in a country marked by decades of apartheid, showed the courage and perseverance to restore the rule of law and which is still fighting to consolidate its achievements”.   The year 2016 is also the African Year of Human Rights and a year of important anniversaries for South Africa - the first democratic constitution 20 years ago, the Soweto revolt 40 years ago, and the women’s march against apartheid 60 years ago – but also for Bostwana - 50th Independence Anniversary. FIDH also will be paying tribute to these struggles and victories for human rights.   The Congress will begin on 23 August with a 2-day Forum entitled: Fighting back for human rights: Enabling a vision, implementing a strategy and ensuring the space for civil society as the cornerstone of human development.   The theme of the Forum was decided upon, after the following assessment: through their work and efforts, civil societies have contributed to increasing the respect for human rights throughout the world, but for the past few years, they have been attacked on all fronts: stigmatisation, judicial harassment, threats, assaults, assassinations.   These attacks go beyond people, for they target the universality of human rights, a universality that is being called into question by states that allude to specific cultural mores, the fight against terrorism, or economic interests.   The purpose of the Forum will be to provide an opportunity for civil society representatives from around the world to meet and discuss how they cope with these attacks. It will bring out the extraordinary capacity of the world movement of human rights defenders to resist and fight.   Over 100 representatives of NGOs from Southern Africa have been invited to participate in the Forum. This region is often described as one of the most stable on the African continent. Yet it is faced with major challenges that are related to security, equality, and protection of human rights. In several countries repressive measures have been implemented to still the civil society while corruption and political racketeering contribute to increasing socio-economic disparities, and violence and discrimination are often directed at women, migrants and LGBTI persons. To respond to these difficult situations, the NGOs of Southern Africa have devised strategies and created tools to protect against arbitrariness and impunity. http://bit.ly/2bhI011   http://2016congress.fidh.org/ http://www.fidh.org/en/impacts/ Visit the related web page
	The UN must be at the forefront of the fight for Civic Rights by International Civil Society Centre Germany   Today many civil society organisations (CSOs) working at local, national or international level are being affected by restrictive government action. Throughout the past few years, many laws have been passed by governments around the world restricting civic freedoms.   Increasingly, citizens and their organisations are suffering from the oppression of their rights to free speech, from impediments to running their programmes, and from threats to activists’ lives.   This comes at a time when we are confronted with persistent poverty, growing inequality, climate change and other planetary boundaries and need to fundamentally redefine how we go about development globally.   History shows that most of the social, environmental and political progress we have made in the past came from citizen action challenging the status quo: abolishing slavery, granting women the right to vote, establishing environmental standards, bringing down the Berlin Wall.   Without the active and unrestrained engagement of civil society around the globe the transition towards a just, equitable and sustainable world as laid down in the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change will not be possible.   Securing and expanding the space for civic participation is an indispensable prerequisite for a peaceful future of humanity.   In order to secure civic space, all those who value democracy and civil rights need to join forces to defend the space for civic participation. A number of CSOs and CSO networks have launched initiatives addressing the trend of shrinking civic space and the number is growing as the threat to civil society is becoming stronger.   To fill this gap a steering Group consisting of colleagues from CIVICUS, ICNL, ActionAid, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Rendir Cuentas, VANI, The Africa Platform, The Oak Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and the Open Society Foundations is driving the development of a Civic Charter, coordinated by the International Civil Society Centre.   Developed and owned by civil society organisations, the Civic Charter seeks to draw together the most crucial terms for civic participation in an easily understandable way, serving as a global reference point for civil society to allocate their rights in the complexity of international law, and provide an effective basis for communications about, and advocacy for, appropriate terms for civic participation, forming a basis for international solidarity with CSOs and activists in countries and regions.   The consultations on the third draft of the Civic Charter ended 31 July. The Civic Charter now will be launched globally on the 28th October.   The UN must be at the forefront of the fight for Civic Rights, says Burkhard Gnarig, Executive Director of the International Civil Society Centre.   The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 provides the foundation for citizens’ rights to participate in shaping their communities.   Among many other key provisions, it lays down that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression” (Article 19), “the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association” (Article 20) and “the right to take part in the government of his country” (Article 21).   Sadly these and other human rights have never turned into reality for a majority of the world’s population. While we have seen a strengthening of pluralism and individual rights after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we observe a negative trend more recently: people’s space to actively participate in their communities is shrinking.   The – usually unrealistic – promises of protection come at the price of restrictions to people’s rights to express their opinion, organise themselves or engage in any other way which does not support the government’s policies.   Two major developments undermine our rights to participate in shaping the future of our communities, our countries and our planet.   On the one hand, many governments are trying to bring their digitally empowered citizens back under control.   Since the beginning of the new millennium, digital technology has empowered individuals to communicate and cooperate world-wide without the intermediation of governments and other state and non-state actors.   Together with their near monopoly in informing, framing and directing the discussions and actions of their citizens, governments have lost much of their control over the individual. At present we see a wide variety of government activities – from censoring the internet to jailing activists – aiming to bring their citizens back under control.   On the other hand, many citizens are willing to trade in some of their fundamental rights on their governments’ promises of protection against terrorists, migrants, or foreign competition.   At the same time we observe a dramatic increase in the number of citizens who are prepared to sacrifice some of their rights on the promise to exterminate terrorism, refuse refugees’ and migrants’ entry, or stop economic and cultural globalisation. A number of people world-wide follow ultra-nationalist and authoritarian leaders offering national protection against the aspiration of the global community.   The – usually unrealistic – promises of protection come at the price of restrictions to people’s rights to express their opinion, organise themselves or engage in any other way which does not support the government’s policies.   In this situation a growing number of actors in civil society, business, governments, political parties, UN institutions, the media, funders, schools and universities are suffering from infringements on their work, and many are considering how to react. My organisation, the International Civil Society Centre, is working to deliver three specific contributions to the fight for civic space:   Firstly, we have been facilitating the development of a Civic Charter which – in a concise, easily understandable document – brings together all of the major provisions framing the space for civic participation. Thus we want to provide a common global basis for the fight for our rights.   Secondly, we are convening an International Civic Forum with key representatives from civil society, governments, the UN, business, the media, academia, funders, and other key influencers, to analyse the situation and create a basis for common activities.   And, thirdly, we will embark on an exploratory journey looking at new forms of civic participation and developing prototypes for effective future action.   As the initiators and owners of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has a special role to play in the defence of civic space. We expect the new Secretary General to explicitly and frequently remind governments that they are supposed to serve, to report to – and be controlled by – their citizens and not the other way around.   We expect all UN Agencies to engage more systematically and effectively in cooperation with civil society organisations fully using, and thus protecting, the space for people’s participation. We expect the UN to engage in a global campaign that promotes human rights world-wide and specifically citizens’ rights to participate – at local, national and global level – in shaping our common future.   * Burkhard Gnarig served as the CEO of Save the Children International, Greenpeace Germany, and terre des hommes Germany, see link below for more details, and Heinrich Böll Foundation: http://www.boell.de/en/dossier-squeezed-spaces-civil-society http://www.boell.de/en/2016/09/13/interview-maina-kiai-our-ideas-keep-living Visit the related web page
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