People carry the coffin of slain Lesbia Janeth Urquia, an environmentalist and indigenous rights activist, outside a church in Marcala, Honduras, Friday, July 8, 2016. AP Photo/Fernando Antonio. All rights reserved.
Civicus, the non-profit organisation ‘dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world’, has released its annual Civil Society Watch Report. The report documents serious violations of the freedoms of association, expression and peaceful assembly in 109 countries over the course of 2015, 14 of which are in Latin America.
It presents a worrying trend. Despite calls to reverse the widespread closing in on the civil society space, it observes ‘more and more states are failing their commitments under international law and reneging on their duty to protect and enable civil society’. This has led to an alarming rise in the number of incidents of harassment, physical violence and targeted assassinations directed at civil society activists across the world – by both state and non-state actors.
