Civil Society

In Hungary, NGOs are now required to register as “civic organisations funded from abroad” if they receive financial support from a foreign source. The government is trying to delegitimise any organisation that criticises certain government policies, says Veronika Móra.

Myanmar’s transition to democracy has earned the country a lot of appraisal on the international stage. But over the last year, the boundaries between what is permitted and what will get people in trouble slid back and blurred again.

When the 19 member countries and the EU gathered in Hamburg for the G20 Summit one important topic was not on the agenda: from China to Mexico, Turkey to Russia, Saudi Arabia to India – the respect for fundamental human rights can no longer be taken for granted.

On 22 June 2017 international experts Gerald Knaus, Rebecca Vincent, and Berit Lindeman spoke with Anar Mammadli and other representatives of Azeri civil society about the critical human rights situation in the country, ways to potentially solve it, and European strategies.

Germany depends on the import of metallic, mineral and fossil fuel resources. The extraction of these raw materials takes place at the expense of the environment and leads to human rights violations. The German Federal Government has to take these consequences adequately into account.

The attack on CEU is one in a series of attempts to eliminate the so-called enemies of illiberal democracy. The government has manufactured a fear-inducing narrative by inventing an imaginary enemy threatening the people of Hungary.

The hostile environment created by the government makes the work of civil society actors practically impossible. To be a human rights activist in Macedonia is to be a person that is constantly threatened, attacked, and demonized.

A Keynote on the Civic Charter at its Launch at the Global Perspectives Conference on 26th October 2016 in Berlin.

Civil society space is under attack worldwide. In her welcoming speech to the Global Perspectives Conference, Barbara Unmüßig urged 160 representatives of civil society organisations from around the globe to stand in solidarity with each other and to put the issue of shrinking and closing spaces back on the political agenda.