Although our movements and collective struggles lack sufficient resources to explore the current state of our operating environment, extensive research points to a gruesome fact: democratic spaces are experiencing a severe global backlash from governments and violent non-state actors. And the worst part is that there is very little accountability for the risks, threats and violence being experienced by inspiring and committed individuals all around the world who are striving for one collective aim: living in free, equal and just societies and communities where all of our identities are not only accepted unconditionally, but also celebrated.
Threats and restrictions targeting civic freedoms came under the spotlight when the UN Human Rights Council appointed a Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Assembly and Association in 2010 and 2013, making it clear that internationally acknowledged and guaranteed freedoms that enable all of us to participate in democratic processes, were experiencing a backlash. Additionally, last year, Freedom House declared 2015 to be the tenth consecutive year of the decline of global freedom in terms of curbs on civil liberties. Alarmingly, CIVICUS further backed this claim by identifying a growing list of 96 countries in which there are “serious threats” to civil society operations.
A sign in solidarity with Istanbul Pride, banned by the Turkish government in June 2016, at an LGBTQ march in Berlin.
