View previous stories
	Addressing exclusion an urgent political issue by CIVICUS Alliance   27 June 2016   The 2016 State of Civil Society Report, produced by CIVICUS, provides a comprehensive `year in review’ as well as 33 guest essays focusing on the topic of exclusion.   Addressing exclusion is an urgent political issue, which gained renewed emphasis with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015.   In the past year, civil society responded to profound human rights abuses caused by conflicts and worked to alleviate human suffering in the wake of disasters, yet faces major challenges including dubious attempts to silence dissenting voices.   CIVICUS documented serious violations of the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly in 109 countries over the course of 2015.   In an increasingly unequal world where human rights are being undermined, civil society is challenging exclusion in innovative ways.   “Much of civic life is about promoting inclusion. It is about amplifying the voices of the marginalised, tackling the causes of discrimination, and promoting equal rights and access to services,” said Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, CIVICUS Secretary-General on launching the organisation’s 2016 State of Civil Society Report. “But, for many millions of people exclusion remains a painful, everyday reality.”   The yearly report, produced by CIVICUS, provides a comprehensive `year in review’ of civil society and the conditions it works in around the world, drawing on a range of perspectives from experts and activists. This year’s 33 thematic guest contributions tackle the complex issue of civil society and exclusion, exposing contemporary, dynamic drivers of exclusion, which in many cases are worsening.   “These contributions from civil society working on the ground emphasise the need for excluded people to be understood not as victims, or objects of charity, but as people striving to access their basic human rights. And, they highlight the disproportionate effect that civic space restrictions have on excluded groups and civil society seeking to protect their rights,” added Sriskandarajah.   The report outlines how the huge and growing gap between super-rich elites and the overwhelming majority of humanity is fuelling public anger and protest. Climate change and conflicts also disproportionately impact excluded populations, further exacerbating exclusion. Addressing exclusion is therefore an urgent political issue, which gained renewed emphasis with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, which promise to change the present reality and “leave no one behind.” However, as the report outlines, all over the world, people are being left behind on the basis of their gender, ethnicity, migration status, faith, age, sexuality, disability, HIV and health status, locality and more.   Civil society responses to global challenges and attacks on civic space   In the past year, civil society responded to profound human rights abuses caused by conflicts, particularly in the Middle East, and worked to alleviate human suffering in the wake of disasters, such as the major earthquake in Nepal. The report notes that part of the fallout of the Syrian war, and of conflict in the Middle East more generally, was an influx of refugees into Europe in 2015. The response of many European governments and the European Union (EU) as a whole was “defensive, miserly and mean-spirited, falling far short of the EU’s stated human rights commitments.” While levels of racism and xenophobia were high, there were also significant voluntary responses from citizens and civil society organisations to communicate that refugees were welcome and to help settle them into communities.   The past year also saw large-scale protest in many parts of the world – including Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, parts of East Asia, and Eastern Europe – in which citizens expressed frustration with corruption, repressive unaccountable governments, and elite economic power which perpetuates inequality.   To thwart civil society, governments are employing a number of dubious measures to silence critical voices. Whether it is under the guise of combatting terrorism, protecting state secrets or preventing cybercrime, governments are using a number of far-stretched justifications to limit free speech, association and assembly. CIVICUS has documented serious violations of the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly in 109 countries over the course of 2015, meaning citizens face serious restrictions for speaking-out, organising and taking action on issues affecting their communities.   Such restrictions threaten the vital role civil society plays in working towards all citizens being able to access their rights and advocate on issues that affect them. Civil society organisations and activists faced restriction most strongly when they worked to question the power of political and economic elites, expose corruption and poor governance and realise the human rights of excluded populations, such as the LGBTI community.   The Year in Review   Assassinations of human rights defenders. Activists and investigative journalists exposing malpractices by extractive industries and agribusinesses remained vulnerable to assassinations, which were recorded in Brazil, Colombia, Honduras, Peru, Philippines and South Africa, among other countries.   Market fundamentalism sparking protest. In many countries, people are seeing their material conditions worsening as public services and employment rights are slashed while the cost of essential goods is rising. As elites grow wealthier many see that their governments are unresponsive, or even complicit in their impoverishment.   Results through continued engagement. The year offered some success stories for civil society. In Tunisia, the commitment and sustained engagement of civil society to build peace and democracy, and resist a slide into repression and extremism, was recognised by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Tunisian Dialogue Quartet, comprising a human rights organisation, a lawyers’ group, a labour union and a trade confederation.   Online freedom. The restriction of online freedom of expression, including through the targeting of social media commentators and restriction of content, is now a marked trend, seen for example in China, Thailand and Turkey. Pervasive surveillance in supposedly mature democracies such as the UK and USA is also limiting online freedom. Roughly 60% of internet users now live in countries where there is censorship of online criticism of the government, ruling family, or military.   Sustainable Development Goals. On the global stage, civil society campaigned successfully to make the major international commitments of 2015 - the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate change - more comprehensive and rights-based than previous agreements.   2016 Theme: Exclusion and Civil Society   Failing on Exclusion. One of the main tests of whether a society is just is how it addresses exclusion, reduces inequality and protects minorities, while enabling their access to services and decision-making. On this measure, many of our societies are failing.   Exclusion in 2015. The history of the past year can be seen as one of exclusion, observed in numerous examples, from the dismal reception given to Europe’s new refugees to the physical attacks made on indigenous people’s rights activists and women’s human rights defenders, and from the enactment of new discriminatory measures against LGBTI people to the continuing fact that black people in the USA are far more likely to die at the hands of the police than anyone else.   Exclusion is intersectional. Different forms of exclusion compound and overlap; for example, people with disabilities are excluded, but women with disabilities face further exclusion, and even more so if they also come from an impoverished community.   Exclusion is dynamic. New drivers of exclusion can come into play and interact with existing experiences of exclusion; for example, people who were most exposed to human rights abuses in Syria on the grounds of poverty or minority status became newly excluded as refugees when they were forced to flee.   Heightened Risks. CSOs and civil society activists of excluded groups often experience heightened risks of restriction and attacks in conditions of limited civic space   Civil society looking inward. Exclusion is not just a concern for society at large, but also for organised civil society. Looking inwards, CSOs need to examine their own practices and ask themselves – how do we collectively address exclusion?   * Access the report via the link below. Visit the related web page
	Brexit: Rise in Hate crime and racial abuse reported following EU referendum by London School of Economics, agencies United Kingdom   Oct. 2016   Hate, Hostility and Human Rights in a Post-Brexit World. (London School of Economics-LSE)   Over the last decade hostile political rhetoric has been mirrored by the entrenchment of discrimination in our laws and our policies and a sustained threat to our Human Rights Act. In 2016 politicians entered a race to the bottom on human rights and migration issues. Recent polling has found that more people think there are more tensions between communities than there were six months ago.   Hate crime has spiked. Now more than ever human rights must be our unifying values. As the UK looks to its new future, this talk will reflect on how human rights – and human rights activists - can offer a national identity of tolerance, diversity and equality, and where the battle lines will be drawn in the months to come.   A public discussion with Martha Spurrier, Director of Liberty and Conor Gearty, Director of the Institute of Public Affairs and Professor of Human Rights Law at LSE.   * Access the videocast here: http://bit.ly/2f31iHj   * For the latest videos and podcasts from the LSE: http://bit.ly/1NFmXUX   July 2016   More than 3,000 hate crimes were reported to police just before and after the vote for Brexit. (Metro UK)   In the two weeks from June 16, there were 3,076 incidents reported to forces across the country – a surge of 42% from the same period last year. This is 915 more than during the same period last year, and echoes the 500% rise in hate crime incidents reported to a police online portal before and after the referendum on June 23. ‘We now have a clear indication of the increases in the reporting of hate crime nationally and can see that there has been a sharp rise in recent weeks,’ Mark Hamilton, the National Police Chiefs’ Council hate crimes spokesman, said. ‘This is unacceptable and it undermines the diversity and tolerance we should instead be celebrating.’ The country has been split in two over Brexit, a vote which has proven increasingly bitter and deeply divisive.   Many have accused the Leave campaign of stoking racism and xenophobia by making unsubstantiated claims about immigration. For example, the campaign has been criticised for repeatedly drawing links between immigration and a squeeze on public services. However many public services, such as the NHS, rely heavily on immigration. In the run up to the referendum, Vote Leave also claimed immigration would go down as a result of leaving the EU. They backtracked on this claim two days after the vote. Police said the number of hate crimes peaked on June 25, when 289 incidents were reported across the UK. The most common offences were assault, harassment and other violence, such as verbal abuse, spitting or barging.   British PM David Cameron has also promised to clamp down on hate crime, and the issue has also been raised at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. And people have also been taking to social media to document instances of racism they witness. The Facebook group Worrying Signs, for example, has been inundated with accounts of race hate and xenophobia since Brexit.   June, 2016   Wave of hate crime and racial abuse reported following EU referendum. (The Independent)   More than a hundred incidents of racial abuse and hate crime have been reported since the UK voted to leave the European Union.   Many of the alleged perpetrators cited the decision to leave the EU explicitly.   One video, purportedly filmed in Hackney on the morning after the referendum, shows a man arguing with someone in a car before yelling: “Go back to your country.”   A Facebook album entitled "Worrying Signs" has been created to document alleged incidents in which people have been targeted with xenophobic comments.   One Twitter post by Kirsty Allan reports one Italian person being assaulted simply for asking someone how they voted in the EU referendum.   Abuse has been documented against those from within the EU - but also those from outside the union and those born in the UK.   Agata Brzezniak came to the UK on a scholarship from Poland when she was 17. She is now studying for a PhD in chemistry.   She has lived in the UK for eight years and told The Independent: "I have made the UK my home, it is where I have felt safe and appreciated.. Like many Polish people in the country I feared the EU referendum result would cause an increase in intolerance, discrimination and racism, but I didn’t think it would become so aggressive and be so immediate."   A few hours after the announcement of the referendum, she says she was approached by a woman who asked her if she was Polish. When she said she was, she said the woman told her to be "scared" and that she must get a visa if she wanted to stay in "her" country.   "The vicious smile and the way she looked at me brought me to tears," said Ms Brzezniak.   In Huntington, Cambridgeshire, there have been reports of signs saying “Leave the EU, no more Polish vermin” posted through the letter boxes of Polish families on the day of the referendum result.   Local media reported the cards were also distributed outside primary schools. One Polish student said he “felt really sad” when he discovered the sign carrying the xenophobic message. The cards were distributed in both English and Polish.   Cambridgeshire Police urged people to come forward if they know anything about the source of the notices.   In west London, the Polish and Social Cultural Association was vandalised with suspected racist graffiti on Sunday morning. The Metropolitan Police are investigating what it has called "racially motivated criminal damage".   The alleged hate crimes occur just as Conservative Party chairwoman, Baroness Warsi, comes out against the "divisive and xenophobic" Brexit campaign.   Ms Warsi, who stopped backing Leave in favour of Remain because of the "lies and hate" spread the Brexit movement, said the campaign had left behind hostility and intolerance.   "I''ve spent most of the weekend talking to organisations, individuals and activists who work in the area of race hate crime, who monitor hate crime, and they have shown some really disturbing early results from people being stopped in the street and saying look, we voted Leave, it''s time for you to leave.   "And they are saying this to individuals and families who have been here for three, four, five generations. The atmosphere on the street is not good."   Labour MP Jess Phillips said she would put forward a question to Parliament to find out how many incidents of racial hatred have been reported over the weekend compared to before the referendum.   Sarah Childs is one of the creators of the Facebook page documenting alleged incidents.   She told The Independent: "We have a lot of people asking us to just move on from the referendum result, but the people affected by these incidents can''t move on while this is happening."   June 2016   There has been a surge in racial abuse in the United Kingdom following its landmark decision to leave the European Union.   The UK voted 52 to 48 per cent to exit the bloc on Friday, with 17.4 million people voting Leave and 16.1 million people voting Remain.   Immigration was a prominent issue raised in the referendum, with some locals worried about the rising number of immigrants settling in Britain and putting pressure on social services and increasing competition for jobs.   But now there are fears the Leave vote has served to validate and vindicate racist views, as a growing number of people report incidents of racial harassment in the wake of the vote.   On social media, people are using the hashtag #PostRefRacism to share their encounters.   Stories tell of people singing "make Britain white again", protesting outside mosques and yelling "Brexit" and "go home" in the faces of foreigners on the street.   After being harassed at a student bar, London resident Karissa Singh set up a Facebook page and Twitter account to document and draw attention to the issue.   "On the Friday following Brexit my brother and I were harassed by a middle-aged white man, who approached us while we were having a drink to tell us that ''we would never be true British'', and that ''he didn''t care if we were here to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or whatever, just go back and do it in your own country," she said.   "This was in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, in a fairly crowded student bar.   "Following this, I heard from several friends who had experienced similar incidents of racism — direct, unashamed and almost righteous in its expression.   Ms Singh, who until recently worked in Bolivia as a human rights activist, voted to remain in the EU and said she was very disappointed with the result. She said all ethnic groups in the UK were reporting being affected by the racism.   "South Asian, Asian, Polish, Black other Europeans — basically anyone who doesn''t pass the ridiculous ''British for generations'' test," she said.   "There have even been cases of violent assault, vandalism, and group intimidation. The police have been involved in several cases."   (www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/reporting-race-hate-crime www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-work/news/widespread-inequality-risks-increasing-race-tensions-warns-ehrc) Visit the related web page
	View more stories