Civil Society Under Attack

In June of 2022, the Nicaraguan government conducted a large-scale attack on the nation’s civil society, shuttering upwards of 200 non-governmental organizations. Citing a failure to meet a recent requirement to register as “foreign agents,” the congress canceled organizations working in fields ranging from education to journalism to health, and everything in between. Experts believe that, in actuality, this is an effort to tighten the reins of power by silencing dissenting voices, a likely motive considering that over 400 NGOs have been dissolved since anti-government protests broke out in 2018. Though dramatic, the situation in Nicaragua is not an outlier, as the third sector finds itself in peril in numerous countries, a reversal of decades-long efforts towards the expansion of human rights and open and democratic societies.

These efforts go as far back as 1948, when, in the wake of the horrors of World War II, the UN created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or UDHR, in an effort to codify fundamental rights. Individual rights pertaining to participation in civil society are clearly expressed in Article 20, which states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.” Article 19 affords additional protections which may be particularly relevant to journalists and activists. It states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

But here it is over 70 years later, and the hard-earned progress towards ensuring these rights is under threat. The report Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2021, published in February of this year, notes that, “In the second year of the pandemic, governments continued to use COVID-19 as an excuse to crack down on freedom of assembly and association.” These trends have continued into the current year. According to the 2022 State of Civil Society Report by CIVICUS, the world in mid-2022 is “characterised by crisis and volatility, where regressive forces are mobilising a fierce backlash, but where dogged civil society mobilisation is still winning vital battles.”

A key component of this regression is a move away from democracy and towards authoritarian rule, especially in Latin America, where efforts to consolidate power have also involved a clampdown on civil society.

Under the leadership of President Bukele, El Salvador has removed several checks and balances on executive power, arrested thousands of suspected gang members without due process, and declared a state of emergency under which the freedoms of assembly and association were temporarily revoked. According to CIVICUS, “Civil society groups, activists and journalists speaking out against abusive measures and democratic backsliding have been harassed and vilified by public authorities, including President Nayib Bukele himself.” This harassment has even included unfounded claims that such groups have criminal ties. As a result, the media and civil society organizations have had to endure vitriol and threats from the public.

The Nicaraguan example is another case in point. In November of 2021, Ortega’s government held what was widely considered to be an illegitimate election, characterized by, among other things, the arrest of would-be opponents and the closure of polling stations, leading U.S. Secretary of State Blinken to declare that “the current Nicaraguan government is no longer democratic”. The government’s decision to dissolve hundreds of civil society organizations is a deliberate effort to ensure that nobody speaks out against its abuse of power, or calls its authority into question, and the 2020 law that requires NGOs to register as “foreign agents” only serves as a pretext for this power grab.

In other countries as well, the law is increasingly being weaponized to act against civil society.

In recent years, several Latin American countries have either passed or proposed laws that would curtail the activities of civil society organizations or enable the government to shut them down completely. Both Venezuela and El Salvador have attempted to prevent organizations from receiving foreign funding, with Venezuela going as far as prosecution. Under a Guatemalan law passed last year, the government can close the doors of any group it deems to “disrupt public order,” while in Ecuador the government can do so to organizations engaged in “political interference.”

Following its invasion of Ukraine, Russia passed a “fake war news” law limiting freedom of expression around the war, and dealing a blow to independent media. Those found to have shared “knowingly false information” about the country’s military activities may be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. The law has resulted in more than 60 criminal cases thus far and prompted an exodus of international media companies reporting from Russia. To make matters worse, Russia recently banned dozens of U.K. journalists from the country and threatened to revoke the accreditation of U.S. media outlets.

The war in Ukraine has also been used as a pretext by the Hungarian government to declare a state of emergency expanding the government’s powers. Prior to this, Orban’s government passed a law expanding the State Audit Office’s financial oversight of civil society organizations, resulting in thousands of investigations into organizations receiving funding from abroad.  

Otherwise known as the “third sector” because it is separate from government and business, civil society often serves as a check on the power of the first two sectors. Thus, not only does it find itself the victim of governments consolidating their power, but also of industries seeking to profit at the expense of people and the environment.

The threat is particularly acute to activists, whose lives are often put at risk due to their efforts to seek justice. In 2021, a total of 358 of these individuals were killed worldwide, with the highest concentration in Latin America and Asia Pacific. Colombia alone accounted for 138 murders, the highest by far, followed by Mexico (42), Brazil (27), India (23), and Afghanistan (19). According to the Front Line Defenders report, “Defenders working on land, environmental and indigenous peoples rights, whose human rights activities disrupt the economic interests of corporations and individuals in mining, logging, and other extractive industries, accounted for 59% of the total killings.”

This trend was recently brought to global attention by the murders of the environmental activist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips in the Brazilian Amazon. Phillips was conducting research for his book How to Save the Amazon at the time. Pereira and local Indigenous communities had brought to light an illegal fishing operation in the region, and it is thought that the murders were tied to this. As a close friend of Phillips writes, the pair “have been killed in an undeclared war against nature and the people who defend it.”

Another high-profile killing to make headlines in recent weeks is that of activist Berta Cáceres, who was shot by a group of hitmen in 2016. Cáceres won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her work to stop the Agua Zarca Dam from being built on Indigenous land in Honduras. In June of 2022, David Castillo, a businessman whose company was involved in the dam’s construction, landed a 22 year jail sentence for his participation in orchestrating her assassination.

While murder stands at the extreme end of the coercive spectrum, other forms of harassment and surveillance aimed at civil society have also been on the rise. Pegasus spyware has compromised the mobile phones of journalists and other civil society actors in Palestine, Jordan, El Salvador, and other countries. This spyware can be utilized to gain access to the camera, microphone, and app calls, and reveal sensitive information such as passwords, location, emails, and contacts. According to Front Line Defenders, “The prevalence of surveillance technology contributes to a chilling effect in which defenders are aware they may be targeted and therefore may become fearful to continue their work.”

In the case of one high-profile assassination, Pegasus spyware was used to track people close to journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the span preceding and following his 2018 murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.

As pointed out in the Front Line Defenders report, another tactic leveraged against activists and human rights defenders is conducting smear campaigns, including those that accuse civil society actors of promoting “gender ideology.” The report states, “Gender ideology is a nebulous, flexible, catchall term used by anti-rights actors to stigmatise and create fear around the legitimate work of [human rights defenders] advocating for women’s rights, gender justice, LGBTIQ+ rights and, in particular, the rights of transgender people. It has been used to derail and disrupt a wide range of struggles for equality and justice.”

In the U.S. state of Florida, backlash against “gender ideology” and efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have resulted in the passage of two controversial laws. The Parental Rights Education bill, known by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, limits discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools and empowers parents to sue school districts if they find the lessons unpalatable. The second law, the Individual Freedom Act, also referred to as the “Stop WOKE Act” by proponents, prohibits the discussion of certain topics in employer DEI training.

Both laws have drawn criticism for censoring important areas of discussion. While the first law has a more direct effect on schools, the Stop WOKE Act has prompted concern among civil society organizations that complying with the law will limit the scope of their work.

Unfortunately, these are but a few examples of the myriad ways in which civil society has been under attack in recent years. For those working to defend human and environmental rights, and promote free and democratic societies, working in these contexts can feel a lot like swimming upstream, or perhaps being stuck in a riptide of repression. But, as the anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” This still holds true, even in the most difficult of circumstances.