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	Threats to Civil Society growing around the World by Mandeep Tiwana CIVICUS, agencies South Africa   June 22, 2015   Democracy on the Retreat in over 96 of the 193 U.N. Member States.   Democracy is on the retreat and authoritarianism is on the rise in more than 96 of the U.N.’s 193 member states, according to a new report released here.   The two regions of “highest concern” for defenders of civic space are Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, which between them account for over half of the countries counted.   These violations are increasing not only in countries perceived to be democratic but also in countries with blatantly repressive regimes.   “The widespread systematic attack on these core civil society liberties has taken many forms, including assault, torture, kidnapping and assassination,” says the CIVICUS Civil Society Watch Report.   “We have known for some time that encroachments on civic space and persecution of peaceful activists were on the rise but it’s more pervasive than many may think,” said Dr. Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Secretary-General of CIVICUS, a South Africa-based international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society worldwide.   “Our monitoring in 2014 shows that legitimate civil society activities are worryingly under threat in a huge number of countries in the global North and South, democratic and authoritarian, on all continents,” he added.   The report says while activists engaged in political reform, uncovering corruption and human rights violations continue to be targeted, those defending local communities from land grabs and environmental degradation, as well as those promoting minority group rights, have been subjected to various forms of persecution.   “The link between unethical business practices and closing civic space is becoming clearer as global inequality and capture of power and resources by a handful of political and economic elite rises."   Advocacy for equitable sharing of natural resources and workers’ rights is becoming increasingly fraught with danger, says the report.   The examples cited range from the killings of environmental activists in Brazil to the intimidation of organisations challenging the economic discourse in India, to arbitrary detention of activists opposing oil exploration in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).   Asked to identify some of the worst offenders, Mandeep Tiwana, Head of Policy and Research at CIVICUS, told IPS : “We don’t provide a ranking of the countries’ violations, but we are able to categorise limitations on civil society activities into completely closed countries and active violators of civic freedoms.”   He said “closed countries” are where virtually no civic activity can take place due to an extremely repressive environment. These include Eritrea, North Korea, Syria, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.   There is a second list of countries that are active violators of civil society rights – meaning they imprison, intimidate and attack civil society members and put in place all kinds of regulations to limit the activities of civil society organisations (CSOs), particularly those working to uncover corruption and human rights violations, Tiwana said.   These include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.   The report also points out some of the tactics deployed to close civic space include passing restrictive laws and targeting individual civil society organisations (CSOs) by raiding their offices, freezing their bank accounts or deregistering them.   A number of democracies are also engaging in illicit surveillance of civil society activists, further weakening respect for human rights.   Stigmatisation and demonisation of civil society activists by powerful political figures and right-wing elements remains an area of concern.   “When citizens’ most basic democratic rights are being violated in more than half the world’s countries, alarm bells must start ringing for the international community and leaders everywhere,” said Sriskandarajah.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/06/democracy-on-the-retreat-in-over-96-of-the-193-u-n-member-states-says-new-study/   June 10, 2015   CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance, has documented serious abuses of civic freedoms in 96 countries in 2014 alone. The annual report of the international advocacy group, Human Rights Watch, laments that the once-heralded Arab Spring has given way almost everywhere to conflict and repression while Amnesty International’s Annual Report 2014/2015 calls it a devastating year for those seeking to stand up for human rights.   In recent years, there has been a perceptible rise in restrictions on civic space – the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly. While the reasons for the eruption of repressive laws and attacks on dissenters vary, negative effects are being felt in both democracies and authoritarian states.   It is increasingly evident that the dangers to civic freedoms come not just from state apparatuses but also from powerful non-state actors including influential business entities and extremist groups subscribing to fundamentalist ideologies. This begs a deeper analysis into the extent and causes of this pervasive problem.   In several countries, laws continue to be drawn up to restrict civic freedoms. They include anti-terror laws that limit freedom of speech, public order laws that limit the right to protest peacefully, laws that stigmatise civil society groups through derogatory names such as ‘foreign agents’, laws that create bureaucratic hurdles to receive crucial funding from international philanthropic institutions as well as laws that prevent progressive civil society organisations from protecting the rights of marginalised minorities such as the LGBTI community.   In this situation, it is indeed possible to identify four key drivers of the pervasive assault on civic space. The first is the global democratic deficit. Freedom House, which documents the state of democratic rights around the world, has reported declines in civil liberties and political freedoms for the ninth consecutive year in 2015.   In too many countries, peaceful activists exposing corruption and rights violations are being stigmatised as ‘national security threats’, and subjected to politically motivated trials, arbitrary detentions and worse.   There appears to be no let up in official censorship and repression of active citizens in authoritarian states like China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Vietnam.   Freedom of assembly is virtually non-existent in such contexts, and activists are often forced to engage online. But when they do so, they are demonised as being agents of Western security agencies.   Ironically, excessive surveillance and/or hounding of whistle-blowers even by countries such as Australia, France, the United Kingdom and United States – whose foreign policies are supposed to promote democratic rights – are contributing to a global climate where close monitoring of anyone suspected of harbouring dissenting views is becoming an accepted norm.   The second driver – and linked to the global democratic deficit – is the worldwide obsession with state security and countering of ‘terrorism’ by all actors except the state. The decline in civic space began after the attack on the World Trade Centre in September 2001 when several established democracies introduced a slew of counter-terror measures weakening human rights safeguards in the name of protecting national security.   The situation worsened after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 as authoritarian leaders witnessed the fall of long-standing dictators in Egypt and Tunisia following widespread citizen protests. The possibility of people’s power being able to overturn entrenched political systems has made authoritarian regimes extremely fearful of the free exercise of civic freedoms by citizens.   This has led to a severe push back against civil society by a number of repressive regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. Governments in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stepped up their efforts to prevent public demonstrations and the activities of human rights groups.   Similar reverberations have also been felt in sub-Saharan African countries with long-standing authoritarian leaders and totalitarian political parties. Thus repression of civic freedoms appears to have intensified in countries such as Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Gambia, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.   Activists and civil society groups in many countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe where democracy remains fragile or non-existent such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are also feeling the heat following governments’ reactions to scuttle demands for political reform.   In South-East Asia too, in countries such as Cambodia and Malaysia which have a history of repressive government and in Thailand where the military seized power through a recent coup, new ‘security’ measures continue to be implemented to restrict civic freedoms.   The third major driver of closing civic space is the rampant collusion and indeed capture of power and resources in most countries by a handful of interconnected political and economic elites.   Oxfam International projects that the richest one percent will own more wealth than 99 percent of the globe’s population by 2016. Thus civil society groups exposing corruption and/or environmental degradation by politically well-connected businesses are extremely vulnerable to persecution due to the tight overlap and cosy relationships among elites.   With market fundamentalism and the neo-liberal economic discourse firmly entrenched in a number of democracies, labour, land and environmental rights activists are facing heightened challenges.   At least 29 environmental activists were reported murdered in Brazil in 2014. Canada’s centre-right government has been closely monitoring and intimidating indigenous peoples’ rights activists opposing large commercial projects in ecologically fragile areas. India’s prime minister recently urged judges to be wary of “five-star activists“ even as the efforts of Greenpeace India to protect forests from the activities of extractive industries have led it to be subjected to various forms of bureaucratic harassment including arbitrary freezing of its bank accounts.   Whistle-blowers like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are hounded for revealing the truth about human rights violations. Nobel peace prize winner, writer and political activist Liu Xiaobo is currently languishing in a Chinese prison.   Another emerging threat to civic space comes from the disturbance caused by religious fundamentalist and evangelist groups seeking to upend the collective progress made by civil society in advancing the human rights discourse.   Failure of the international community to prevent violent conflict and address serious human rights abuses by states such as Israel and Syria is providing a fertile breeding ground for religious extremists whose ideology is deeply inimical to the existence of a vibrant and empowered civil society.   Besides, religious fundamentalists are able to operate more freely in conflicted and politically fragile environments whose number appears to be rising, thereby exacerbating the situation for civil society organisations and activists seeking to promote equality, peace and tolerance.   Current threats to civic space and civil society activities are a symptom of the highly charged and polarised state of international affairs. The solutions to the grave and interconnected economic, ecological and humanitarian crises currently facing humanity will eventually have to come from civil society through a reassertion of its own value even as political leaders continue to undermine collective efforts.   Beginning a series of conversations on how to respond to common threats at the national, regional and international levels is critical. Establishment of solidarity protocols within civil society could be an effective way to coalesce around both individual cases of harassment as well as systemic threats such as limiting legislation or policies.   Further, the international legal framework that protects civic space needs to be strengthened. The International Bill of Rights comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) leaves scope for subjective interpretation of some aspects of civic freedoms.   It is perhaps time to examine the possibility of a comprehensive legally binding convention on civic space that better articulates the extent and scope of civic space, so essential to an empowered civil society. However, laws are only as good as the commitment of those charged with overseeing their implementation.   Importantly and urgently, to reverse the global onslaught on civic space and human rights, we need visionary political leadership willing to take risks and lead by example.   Over the last few years, analysts have noted with horror the steady dismantling of hard won gains on civic freedoms. Many thought things could get no worse. … but they did.   It is time to start thinking seriously about stemming the tide before we reach the point of no return.   * The views expressed in this article are those of the author. Mandeep Tiwana, is a lawyer specialising in human rights and civil society issues and Head of Policy and Research at CIVICUS: http://civicus.org/index.php/en/ http://www.trust.org/item/20150709111156-m71s5/?source=jtHeadlineStory http://www.rightingfinance.org/?p=1321 http://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/08/dispatches-witch-hunt-against-undesirables http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Media.aspx?IsMediaPage=true&LangID=E   June 2015   Women’s rights activists increasingly under threat. (ActionAid)   A new ActionAid survey of frontline women’s rights activists finds that they feel increasingly under threat, with nearly two thirds reporting deterioration in their safety and security in the last two years.   ActionAid says that the targeting of activists is severely hindering progress to stop violence against women and girls, despite decades of political attention and numerous international human rights commitments. The survey found that:   Almost two thirds of the women’s rights activists (62 per cent) felt less safe than they did two years ago and of these, 19 per cent said they felt much less safe.   Of the respondents who said they felt about the same or safer, over half (56 per cent) still reported cases of harassment or fear of harassment.   Eighty per cent of activists working on abortion or on LGBT rights felt less safe or much less safe with 20 per cent reporting no change. No-one working in these fields felt safer than in the past.   Of specified threats, half (50 per cent) came from politically motivated groups, including armed militias, 42 per cent cited governments, 35 per cent religious groups and 12 per cent police.   The survey accompanies the release of a major ActionAid report, Fearless: standing with women and girls to end violence published in advance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals being launched in September. ActionAid says that many governments are failing in their international obligations to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls.   Fearless exposes serious gaps in the implementation of commitments to end violence. These include funding shortfalls with women’s groups increasingly starved of funds while women remain marginalised from decision-making at all levels, as well as accountability failings including the non-prosecution of violent attacks.   Meanwhile women’s collective action – which is critical to challenging violence – is increasingly constrained by political repression, inequality and religious fundamentalisms.   According to the report, in a study of 70 countries, women and girls are almost twice as likely to experience violence in countries that have weaker civil rights than in countries with a stronger civil rights framework.   Samira Hamidi from the Afghan Women’s Network said: “Opposition groups have repeatedly threatened me. There are no prevention and protection mechanisms by my government where any women, but particularly women human rights defenders, can be supported.”   Lucia Fry, Head of Policy at ActionAid said: “Sadly, the work of fearless women standing up against violence is being eroded by increasing intolerance of dissent and the rising influence of fundamentalist agendas that are anti-women’s rights.   “More and more women and girls are facing the fear of violence and its consequences for them and their families.   “As our survey shows, women activists from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil and the USA have all seen threats of and violence increase, making them insecure and hampering their efforts to improve women’s lives and end violence in society.”   ActionAid is calling on the international community to champion the target of eliminating all forms of violence against women in the Sustainable Development Goals, and to ensure adequate financing and the full participation of women’s organisations to ensure its implementation.   “If the world does not act now, women and girls will continue to pay with their bodies, their opportunities and their lives for generations to come.”   http://www.actionaid.org.uk/latest-news/womens-rights-activists-increasingly-under-threat Visit the related web page
	Meaningful engagement with civil society is essential to ensure diverse voices are included by Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Joint OMCT-FIDH programme Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan   15 October 2015   New draft law threatens the independence and existence of NGOs in Kazakhstan, warns UN rights expert   The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, today warned that Kazakhstan’s Bill amending the Law on Non-profit organizations “may not only compromise the independence of associations, but challenge their very existence.”   The draft law establishes an operator with the right to allocate both governmental and non-governmental grants, including grants from international organizations, diplomatic missions or international not-for-profit organizations, to non-governmental organizations.   “The possibility for a centralized Government’s operator to distribute all grants irrespective of sources, be it public or private funds, enables the authorities to arbitrarily limit resources and to control the entire not-for-profit sector,” Mr. Kiai cautioned. “By controlling the sources of funds, the draft law would limit associations’ functional autonomy and put their independence and existence at serious risk.”   “Access to financial resources is an integral and vital part of the right to freedom of association,” the expert underscored.   The new legislative amendments were adopted by the Senate on 8 October 2015. The text would now be with the Lower House of the Parliament for its final consideration and it may be adopted any time from now.   The draft law also bars associations receiving governmental grants from using more than 10 percent of their funding for administrative expenditures. “Other countries have adopted such laws in recent years and we now know, from experience, that this has had a devastating impact on civil society organizations,” the UN expert noted.   “Many were forced to stop their activities, leaving society deprived from these organizations’ essential contribution in the economic, cultural, political and social fields and devoid of important voices often representing the most marginalized.”   “By preventing associations to decide freely on their activities, such limitation questions the very meaning of freedom of association and, as experience shows, endangers the very existence of associations,” he said.   “The role of civil society in a country with significant democratic and economic development aspirations is crucial to achieve ambitious goals. A meaningful engagement with civil society is essential to ensure diverse voices are included in decision making process,” he added.   Mr. Kiai recalled the recommendations made at the end of his country visit to Kazakhstan earlier this year*. “While I commended the Government on certain measures aimed at favouring the inclusion of associations in the public debate, I also stressed the need for any amendments concerning access to funding not to jeopardize the independence of associations, which is one of the main attributes of freedom of association,” he said.   “In this regard, I reiterate my call to the authorities for the draft law to be repealed,” the Special Rapporteur concluded.   Mr. Kiai’s present appeal has been endorsed by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom or opinion and expression, David Kaye, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16608&LangID=E   16 June 2015   A Letter from Azerbaijan Jail, by Khadija Ismayilova.   Voicing concern over “a shrinking democratic space” in Azerbaijan as human rights defenders, journalists and Government critics are increasingly being deprived of their liberty, the United Nations rights office called on the authorities to galvanize efforts to safeguard the freedoms of expression and association in the country.   “These cases are indicative of a shrinking democratic space in Azerbaijan, where many civil society actors, journalists and lawyers fear reprisals or legal and administrative obstruction in carrying out their important work,” Rupert Colville, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights(OHCHR), said at a press briefing in Geneva.   He added that the closure of some media outlets and the denial of entry to certain journalists and international human rights organizations, especially ahead of the European Games in the capital, Baku, is “one symptom of a wider problem.”   “There is an urgent need to relax the legislative and administrative requirements concerning civil society organisations,” stressed Mr. Colville, adding that local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should be allowed to monitor domestic trials on human rights as well as to cooperate with human rights mechanisms without fear of reprisals.   Urging the Government of Azerbaijan to ensure due process and to prevent any interference with defendants’ rights to counsel, OHCHR underscored the independence and accountability of administration of justice and its full respect for the international human rights obligations and commitments.   The UN human rights office called on the authorities to “to ensure respect for the rule of law and to urgently review all cases where people may have been deprived of their liberty for expressing dissenting views or otherwise exercising their fundamental rights.”   http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=51172#.VYDdAVKpWzl   11 June 2015   The eyes of the world are on my country, my beloved Azerbaijan, as it hosts the inaugural European Games, beginning on Friday. The tourists and athletes are enjoying the spectacle of the opening ceremony while the international public watches on television at home.   But I will not see the games. I don’t know what the weather is like or how bad the Baku traffic is. I have access to very little information of any kind. I am sitting in my cell in the Kurdakhani prison — my home for the past six months.   I am a journalist, in jail for my work exposing corruption at the highest levels of the Azerbaijani government. I have been targeted, along with dozens of other political prisoners — fellow journalists, human rights defenders, youth activists, politicians and others — for telling the truth about the situation in my country. Azerbaijan’s best and brightest have been locked up, tucked away for the European Games. They didn’t want you to see or hear us and our inconvenient truths.   The truth is that Azerbaijan is in the midst of a human rights crisis. Things have never been worse. As those at the top continue to profit from corruption, ordinary people are struggling to work, struggling to live, struggling for freedom. And we must struggle with them, for them.   I am carrying on my struggle here, from jail. My investigations into corruption continue, thanks to the help of dedicated colleagues. I have been punished for speaking out from jail, placed into solitary confinement, and prevented from seeing my family and lawyers. My notes have been seized from my cell. As I have said before, if this is the price to pay, it is worth it.   Today, I say to the international community: Do not let the government of Azerbaijan distract your attention from its record of corruption and abuse. Keep fighting for human rights, for those who are silenced. Keep fighting for right, and for good. Be loud, and be public. The people of Azerbaijan need to know that their rights are supported.   And please, don’t call just for my freedom; call for the release of all political prisoners. Stand up for freedom of expression in Azerbaijan. Stand up for human rights.   * The writer is an investigative journalist, detained since December in Azerbaijan. She is the recipient of the 2015 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Prize. The Sport for Rights campaign obtained this letter through intermediaries and submitted it to The New York Times via PEN American Center, a member of the campaign.   http://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/statements/azerbaijan/2015/06/d23200/   * 25 May 2016   UNESCO welcomes Azerbaijan’s decision to free investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova.   The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has welcomed Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court decision to free an award-winning investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova.   “Some three weeks after UNESCO awarded [Ms. Ismayilova] the prestigious UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, I welcome her release from prison as a major step for freedom of expression, due process and the rule of law in Azerbaijan,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova in a press release.   “UNESCO’s commitment to stand by journalists around world is unwavering,” Ms. Bokova added.   Ms. Ismayilova, a freelance journalist and contributor to the Azerbaijani service of Radio Free Europe, was detained in December 2014. In September 2015, she was sentenced to seven and a half years’ imprisonment on charges relating to abuse of power and tax evasion.   “Our mandate to enhance the safety of journalists and fight impunity for crimes against them, to defend freedom of expression and media freedoms has never been so important. This requires the commitment of all actors and every Government,” Ms. Bokova said.   http://rsf.org/fr/actualites/azerbaidjan-khadija-ismailova-liberee Visit the related web page
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