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	People Power Under Attack 2023 by CIVICUS Monitor, agencies   Mar. 2024   Hypocrisy by powerful countries undermined the rules-based international order in 2023, making it harder to promote human rights and resolve the world’s most devastating wars, global civil society alliance CIVICUS announced in a new report Thursday.   In its 13th annual State of Civil Society Report, Johannesburg-based CIVICUS details how powerful states selectively chose to respect international laws, shielding allies but castigating enemies. The most blatant examples are countries that rushed to Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion but backed Israel’s assaults on civilians in Gaza, and vice versa.   “Armies, rebels and militia around the world committed horrific human rights abuses in 2023 because they knew they could get away with it thanks to a flailing international system full of double standards,” said Mandeep Tiwana, CIVICUS Chief Officer of Evidence and Engagement. “Starting with the UN Security Council, we need global governance reform that puts people at the centre of decision making.”   The State of Civil Society Report assesses activism around the world in the past year and analyses the year’s events from a civil society perspective. The report is based on over 250 interviews and articles published by CIVICUS covering over 100 countries and territories.   Besides its findings on global governance and conflict, the new report details civil society’s role in addressing climate change, protecting democracy and expanding gender rights.   The report shows that with powerful states repeatedly blocking international action, grassroots civil society organisations were central to responding to major crises in 2023.   In Ukraine, volunteers documented human rights violations and helped with reconstruction of devastated cities, while Sudanese youth groups delivered humanitarian aid in the worst-hit conflict zones and offered solutions to achieve accountable civilian governance. In Myanmar, civil society led the way with ideas to restore democracy alongside peace. Local Palestinian journalists were the world’s key lifeline to first-hand information about the war in Gaza.   But instead of protecting such members of civil society, fighters and their state backers routinely undermined or even attacked them over the last year. In Gaza, for instance, Israel’s military killed record numbers of journalists. Meanwhile, states criminalised activists who supported migrants and refugees fleeing conflict.   “Attacks on civil society were the norm in 2023, even from governments that claim allegiance to democratic values,” said Tiwana. “The prevalence of such abuses proves the international system desperately needs reform. We are facing an acute crisis of moral leadership on the international stage.”   War zones were not the only places where the powerful tried to silence civil society. The report shows that authoritarian governments repressed activists at major meetings from the COP28 climate change conference in Dubai to the G20 meeting in New Delhi. Even at the UN General Assembly and Sustainable Development Goals summit in New York, bureaucratic blockages resulted in exclusion of many civil society representatives from decision-making spaces.   The report urges global governance reform at September’s International Summit of the Future at the UN headquarters in New York, including new rules to moderate or reduce veto powers at the Security Council. Civil society has proposed numerous avenues for reform to increase people’s participation in global governance systems. These include calls for the creation of a UN Civil Society Envoy to better foster people’s participation at the world body as well as a UN Citizen’s Initiative to enable people to bring matters before the UN for resolution. Civil Society also calls for a UN Parliamentary Assembly to give directly-elected people’s representatives a say in UN decision-making. All of these suggestions would increase people’s oversight and contribution to global governance.   “Throughout 2023, civil society offered workable, people-centered solutions to the world’s most pressing problems,” said Tiwana. “But time and again, global institutions and leaders preferred to sideline activists rather than work with them to achieve positive change. If humanity is to overcome today’s multiple overlapping crises, civil society must have a seat at the table.”   http://www.civicus.org/index.php/state-of-civil-society-report-2024 http://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-center/news/news http://lens.civicus.org/   The CIVICUS Monitor, which tracks freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression in 198 countries and territories, announced in a new report that almost one third of humanity now lives in countries with ‘closed’ civic space.   This is the highest percentage–30.6% of the world’s population–living in the most restrictive possible environment since CIVICUS Monitor’s first report in 2018. Meanwhile, just 2.1% of people live in ‘open’ countries, where civic space is both free and protected, the lowest percentage yet and almost half the rate of six years ago.   These findings, detailed in the People Power Under Attack 2023 report, point to a worldwide civic space crisis requiring immediate, global efforts to reverse.   “We are witnessing an unprecedented global crackdown on civic space,” said CIVICUS Monitor lead researcher Marianna Belalba Barreto. “The world is nearing a tipping point where repression, already widespread, becomes dominant. Governments and world leaders must work urgently to reverse this downward path before it is too late.”   The CIVICUS Monitor rates each country's civic space conditions based on data collected throughout the year from country-focused civil society activists, regionally-based research teams, international human rights indices and the Monitor's own in-house experts. The data from these four separate sources are then combined to assign each country a rating as either ‘open,’ ‘narrowed,’ ‘obstructed,’ ‘repressed’ or ‘closed.’   Seven countries saw their ratings drop this year. These include Venezuela and Bangladesh, each now rated ‘closed’ due to intensifications of existing crackdowns on activists, journalists and civil society.   Democratic countries slipped too. Europe’s largest democracy, Germany, fell from ‘open’ to ‘narrowed’ amid protest bans and targeting of environmental activists. Bosnia & Herzegovina also declined to ‘obstructed,’ the twelfth European country downgraded since 2018.   One of 2023’s most dramatic slides occurred in Senegal, once considered among West Africa’s most stable democracies. Senegal entered the ‘repressed’ category amid sustained government persecution of protesters, journalists and opposition ahead of February elections.   “The range of countries where authorities restricted citizen participation in 2023 shows clampdowns are not isolated incidents but are part of a global pattern,” said Belalba. “A global backslide requires a global response. If citizens are not able to freely gather, organise and speak out, the world will not be able to solve inequality, confront the climate crisis and bring an end to war and conflict.”   CIVICUS Monitor data shows that worldwide, authorities target people’s freedom of expression above all else. Half of all documented violations in 2023 targeted free speech, with incidents ranging from a bombing outside a journalist’s house in Indonesia, the arrest of the head of a radio station in Tunisia and police pepper-spraying a reporter covering a protest in the United States.   Our research also reveals that intimidation is the number one tactic to restrict citizen freedoms. Human rights defenders, activists and media experienced intimidation in at least 107 countries. Media in particular bear the brunt, with 64% of incidents targeting journalists.   “Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democracy, but our data shows it faces serious threats,” said Belalba. “Assaults on journalists and media not only stifle individual voices, they are assaults on the very foundation of open societies.”   Despite these alarming trends, People Power Under Attack 2023 highlights areas of progress too. Timor-Leste’s civic space moved up to the second best rating ‘narrowed’ from ‘obstructed,’ reflecting the country’s commitment to fundamental freedoms. Four other countries saw ratings improve, though they remain in ‘repressed’ or ‘obstructed’ zones.   The report also details bright spots where countries made steps toward opening societies. Among these, Fiji repealed a restrictive media law. The Kenyan courts recognised the right of LGBTQI+ people to associate. Even Tajikistan, rated ‘closed,’ created a national human rights strategy with civil society input. Still, these and other improvements remain halting and often disconnected compared to widespread repression.   “These small steps show that even amid unprecedented restrictions, civil society is pushing back,” said Belalba. “These courageous acts of resistance by active citizens and civil society organisations give us hope that the downward trend is not permanent and can be reversed.”   http://monitor.civicus.org/globalfindings_2023/ http://ishr.ch/latest-updates/human-rights-defenders-are-the-lifeblood-of-the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/ http://ishr.ch/25-years-un-declaration-on-human-rights-defenders http://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2024/mounting-damage-flawed-elections-and-armed-conflict http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/statement-on-the-75th-anniversaries-of-the-genocide-convention-and-the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights/ http://www.openglobalrights.org/anti-green-authoritarianism-democratic-backsliding-heating-planet/ http://healthyenvironmentisaright.org/right-to-a-healthy-environment-global-coalition-wins-un-human-rights-prize/ Visit the related web page
	So many Afghans have not given up on a better future by Shaharzad Akbar, Malala Yousafzai Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Nelson Mandela Foundation, agencies   Shaharzad Akbar is an Afghan human rights activist who served as the chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission until the beginning of 2022. Alena Bieling interviewed Shaharzad on receiving the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Human Rights Award 2023   You have recently been awarded the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) Human Rights Award 2023, which honours your unwavering commitment to human rights in Afghanistan. Can you tell us what the living situation is currently like in the country?   When looking at the situation in Afghanistan, the first thing that we have to do is to emphasise the fact that women are systematically deprived of their fundamental rights across the country. Girls are deprived of the right to attend secondary school, women can’t go to university, they are banned from most sectors with the exception of health and education. Women are banned from working in NGOs and the United Nations, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where girls cannot go to school.   The UN has said that they have never faced a situation in which they were told to not employ women. Afghan activists have called the situation a ‘gender apartheid’ because of its widespread and systematic violation of women’s rights on the basis of their gender.   The human rights situation more broadly is also very concerning. The Taliban have abolished most existing laws but failed to introduce new ones, creating a state of lawlessness in which arbitrary decisions by any Taliban judge, in fact, becomes the law. This has made it very difficult for people to access justice, in particular for women, since they have been completely removed from the judiciary.   The laws protecting women and children have also been abolished, as well as other laws aligned with international human rights, such as the anti-torture legislation. Moreover, there are no redress mechanisms, therefore victims of violations perpetrated by the Taliban have nowhere to go.   Your work has been heavily focused on democratic development, advocacy and women’s rights in Afghanistan. Where do you see the biggest challenges facing your country today?   The Afghan civil society has been heavily suppressed and the media is being censored. There is absolutely no space for activism, the promotion of democracy or any other form of civic resistance against the Taliban.   Protestors face brutal suppression, as well as harassment and detention, which also pose a threat to their family members. And if you want to document the human rights violations in Afghanistan, you will have a lot of difficulties because the Taliban have made access to information very difficult. For Afghan women, being a human rights defender is even less of a possibility, because women are not allowed to leave the house without being accompanied by a male guardian. Thus, I would say that being a human rights defender in Afghanistan right now means being treated like a criminal and even putting your life at risk.   From your experience, how has the situation changed in the past decades? What are the main differences to life in Afghanistan 35 years ago?   We had over four decades of war, so some elements of instability and violence have unfortunately been there for as long as I have lived – and even before that. And, at least in the two decades post international intervention in Afghanistan, conflicts, as well as corruption, were major issues. This has had a huge impact on the country. It has meant continuous waves of migration, continued brain drain and an inability to develop our institutions with continuity.   Yet, prior to the Taliban takeover, there was at least some space for improving things, including laws and institutions, as well as for educating new generations of Afghan women and girls and trying to rebuild the country. This was interrupted by the Taliban’s war against the government and the international forces.   What we have right now is a backsliding that is so massive it will take a long time to undo, particularly when it comes to girls’ education.   Because every day lost is a day that you cannot recover. And girls have been deprived of education for over two years now. We are a poor country that has been at war for a very long time. My concern is that we’ll have continuous and worsening poverty if women remain completely excluded from education and work.   And if these discriminatory policies continue, they will, in turn, refuel the conflict. Thus, while in terms of actual violence, things seem a bit quieter now, the outlook for the future is very bleak.   What can the European Union and other international actors do to help improve the living situation of the people/women on the ground?   One of the things that the international community can do is to decide on a common position on how they want to engage with the Taliban and what their priorities are. Because the Taliban are very happy to deal with countries bilaterally rather than with a bloc of countries that can exert more pressure on them. For some countries, the current priorities are the human rights situation, as well as long-term peace and justice. But for others, their priority is very narrowly defined as ‘counterterrorism’ with no real long-term outlook.   International actors can also sustain and increase humanitarian aid. The situation in Afghanistan is very dire, and there is a massive amount of needs. It is also important to improve oversight of how aid is being distributed — there are concerns about how much of the aid is actually being rechannelled, misused or wasted. And then, of course, there is the issue of resettlement for Afghans at risk. Many of the resettlement plans announced haven’t moved quickly or efficiently enough, and there are many vulnerable people who fall beyond the scope of these programs. That means we are complicit in putting human rights defenders at risk of being silenced by the Taliban since we are not offering other opportunities for them to continue their advocacy work.   Do you consider the question of whether governments should actually cooperate with the Taliban valid?   For humanitarian organisations to be able to continue delivering humanitarian aid, we need a degree of engagement. When thinking of isolating the Taliban, you want to make sure not to isolate the Afghan people in the process. So, I think that one of the solutions is to have principled engagement, a common set of values around which those countries engage.   We have to ask ourselves: do we want the Taliban’s policies discriminating against women and girls? Do China, Pakistan or Germany want this? The question then is how can we work together to get closer to tackling this? But if China is only interested in counterterrorism, Germany is only interested in containing refugees, and Pakistan is only interested in economy and trade – and for all of them, women and girls’ rights have become second or third issues – then it will be hard to have any impact or leverage at all.   What are some takeaways for the Global North from what happened in Afghanistan?   I think one of the main takeaways should be to exhaust every single measure before trying a military intervention. And when a military intervention does indeed take place, the international community needs to uphold the principles or values that they say they are there for. First and foremost, in fighting violations, you are not allowed to commit more violations yourself. This is exactly what happened in Afghanistan. There was a culture of impunity, and allegations of abuse by the Afghan army, as well as the international forces, which were not seriously investigated. There were serious allegations of corruption, again not just by Afghans but also by the American contractors.   And if you let these things fester, they can collapse a regime. Just because you are dealing with so-called terrorists, this doesn’t mean that you can do whatever you please — for it’s going to come back and haunt you. The way things ended in Afghanistan is another lesson — the lack of consideration of the implications of the decisions that were taken for 30 million Afghans. It was also very disappointing to see that, when the US was leading the so-called peace process, Europe was mainly following. Europe had invested in Afghanistan for over 20 years, yet, it still couldn’t even voice a strongly worded objection. So, yes, I think there are a lot of lessons learned.   With the current surge of violence globally, Afghanistan has largely gone unnoticed. What would you like the world to know about the current situation in Afghanistan?   It is really important to realise that there is no other way to describe what’s going on in Afghanistan but as gender apartheid. It is a massive systematic exclusion and humiliation of women, presenting women as less-than-human, secondary citizens. This is a level of human rights violation that cannot be in the interest of any society anywhere in the world — or for international security. Thus, paying attention to what’s going on in Afghanistan and trying to advocate with governments to do more, to work together and truly prioritise these issues, is very important. I know that there are many urgent issues right now that require our attention and resources. But I do believe that we have it in us to deal with more than one issue at a time.   It’s also important to remember that there are many ways in which people are resisting these injustices, particularly women. We hear about women who go to sit-in protests or gather in their homes to protest, women who form book clubs or teach girls in secret. There are many ways in which women are trying to run businesses and feed their families, trying to defy the Taliban’s policies in any way they can to have a public presence.   I think this is important to acknowledge — the fact that so many Afghans have not given up on a better future for themselves. The message can only be then that we certainly cannot give up either.   http://www.ips-journal.eu/interviews/so-many-afghans-have-not-given-up-on-a-better-future-7171/ http://unama.unmissions.org/unama-deeply-concerned-over-detentions-afghan-women-and-girls-0   Dec. 2023   The Nelson Mandela Foundation honoured the 10th anniversary of Madiba’s passing on 5 December 2023 with the 21st instalment of the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture, with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai as the speaker, below is an extract from her speech:   "I know I am here to give a lecture, but you all know me – I will always be a student first. It is as students that we first open our eyes to injustice. It is as students that we first ask difficult questions about the world. It is as students that we first find friends who embolden us to speak out. So when I thought about what I want to share with you today, and what it means to lead for a just future, I approached the assignment not as a lecturer but as a student.   And with Mandela’s legacy in mind, I asked myself: what injustice is the world overlooking? Where are we allowing inhumanity to become the status quo? The answer for me was very clear, and very personal: the oppression of girls and women in Afghanistan.   My family and I know what it feels like to live under the Taliban ideology. At 11, I was banned from school. At 15, I was shot and nearly killed for standing up for my right to receive an education. We were always looking over our shoulders.   Nelson Mandela and his fellow South Africans knew that feeling well. And their resilience and collective action in the face of injustice can inspire us.   Just two years ago, women in Afghanistan were working, serving in leadership positions, running ministries, travelling freely. Girls of all ages were playing soccer and cricket, and learning in schools. Though all was not perfect, there was progress. And fundamentally, girls and women had opportunities, they had choice, they had agency.   Then, the Taliban seized power a second time. As they did in the 1990s, they quickly began the systematic oppression of girls and women. For a short time, this made headlines. But since then, the world has turned its back on the Afghan people.   Maybe this reflects the sheer number of crises the world is facing: Violence and displacement in Sudan … Famine in Yemen … The climate crisis being debated right now at COP28 … War in Ukraine … And of course, the unjust bombardment of Gaza … where a child is killed every 10 minutes. So much of humanity is wounded. But we cannot allow ourselves to buy into this false notion that we can only care about one crisis at a time. We must be able to hold space for suffering wherever it is happening in the world.   So today, I would like to bring attention back to the girls of Afghanistan, whose suffering has been sidelined. Our first imperative is to call the regime in Afghanistan what it really is. It is gender apartheid. We know that gender-based discrimination exists in every country. Gender-based persecution exists in many countries. But gender apartheid is different.   Apartheid is a system that is imposed and enforced by those in power – the very people who are supposed to protect their citizens. In South Africa, defenders of such a system insisted that it was somehow the natural order of things to segregate whites from non-whites. Similarly, in Afghanistan, the Taliban say that oppressing girls and women is a matter of religion.   So let me say this as plainly as possible: that is not only an excuse, but it is also not true. Many Muslim scholars, including from Afghanistan, have made clear that Islam does not condone denying girls and women their right to education and to work. But the Taliban are not interested in the truth. They are interested in maintaining power. And they will use any excuse, from culture to security, to justify their actions.   In the name of their false vision, they have introduced more than 80 decrees and edicts restricting girls’ and women’s rights. If you are a girl in Afghanistan, the Taliban has decided your future for you. You cannot attend secondary school or university. You cannot find an open library where you can read.   You see your mothers and your older sisters confined and constrained in a similar way. They cannot leave the house on their own. Not to work. Not to go to the park. Not to get a haircut. Not to even see a doctor. And the punishment for doing these very ordinary, everyday things is severe: indefinite detention. Forced marriage. Beating. Death.   In effect, the Taliban have made girlhood illegal. And it is taking a toll. Girls kept out of school are experiencing depression and anxiety.Some are turning to narcotics, attempting suicide. No girl, anywhere in the world, should have to suffer this way.   If we, as a global community, accept the Taliban’s edicts, we are sending a devastating message to girls everywhere: that they are less human. That your rights are up for debate. That we are willing to look away.   There is another reason to call this gender apartheid. Apartheid is more than a description; it is a legal concept. South Africans fought for racial apartheid to be recognised and criminalised at the international level. In the process, they drew more of the world’s attention to the horrors of apartheid. More people joined the anti-apartheid campaign, driving political and cultural change. By defining systemic oppression in legal terms, they named it and made it easier to enlist allies against it.   But gender apartheid has not been explicitly codified yet. That is why I call on every government, in every country, to make gender apartheid a crime against humanity. We have an opportunity to do that right now. The UN is currently drafting and debating a new Crimes Against Humanity Treaty. This is the moment for world leaders to stand with Afghan girls and women. Adding and adopting language on gender apartheid to the treaty will codify it under international law.   Member states like South Africa can play an important role in championing this cause. This legal approach might seem disconnected from everyday lives and human suffering. But international law is not an abstraction. It is a practical tool. It is a way to protect the oppressed. It is a way to hold the Taliban to account – and to hold anyone who helps them, legally complicit.   And, as we saw with South Africa, it can spur and strengthen collective action. In these ways, codification will help prevent gender apartheid from happening elsewhere. It will send a strong message of support to the girls and women of Afghanistan who have been demanding this: that we hear them. That we will not let them fight alone".   http://www.nelsonmandela.org/news/entry/full-transcript-21st-nelson-mandela-annual-lecture   * After August: A collection of stories documenting the lives of Afghan women is a collaboration between UN Women Afghanistan, Zan Times, Limbo and independent storytellers: http://www.afteraugust.org/   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/afghanistan-talibans-arbitrary-arrests-and-detention-women-and-girls-over http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/gender-apartheid-must-be-recognised-crime-against-humanity-un-experts-say http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/02/1146177 http://unama.unmissions.org/reports-womens-rights-women-peace-and-security http://tinyurl.com/yc82tzen http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/06/taliban-and-global-backlash-against-womens-rights http://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/14/out-sight-afghans-are-going-hungry http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/afghanistan-humanitarian-needs-and-response-plan-2024-december-2023 Visit the related web page
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