Senegal: Democracy in the Balance?

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Credit: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters via Gallo Images

LONDON, Aug 18 2023 (IPS) – Civic space is deteriorating in Senegal ahead of next February’s presidential election. Recent protests have been met with lethal violence and internet and social media restrictions. Senegal’s democracy will soon face a key test, and whether it passes will depend largely on whether civic space is respected.

Political conflict

Recent protests have revolved around the populist opposition politician Ousmane Sonko. Sonko came third in the 2019 presidential election and has grown to be the biggest thorn in President Macky Sall’s side. He’s won support from many young people who see the political elite as corrupt, out of touch and unwilling to tackle major social and economic problems such as the country’s high youth unemployment. He’s also been the subject of a recent criminal conviction that his supporters insist is politically motivated.

On 1 June, Sonko was sentenced to two years in jail for ‘corrupting youth’. This resulted from his arrest on rape charges in March 2021. Although he was cleared of the most serious charges – something women’s rights advocates have expressed concern about – his conviction likely makes him ineligible to stand in the next presidential election.

Sonko’s arrest in March 2021 triggered protests in which 14 people died. His conviction set off a second wave of protests. Sonko was arrested again on 28 July on protest-related charges, including insurrection. A few days later, the government dissolved his party, Pastef. It’s the first such ban since Senegal achieved independence in 1960.

All of this gave fresh impetus to Sonko’s supporters, who accuse the government of instrumentalising the judiciary and criminal justice system to stop a credible political threat.

Repressive reaction

The latest wave of protests saw instances of violence, including stone-throwing, tyre burning and looting. The state responded with lethal force. According to civil society estimates, since March 2021 over 30 people have been killed, more than 600 injured and over 700 detained.

In response to the recent protests, the army was deployed in the capital, Dakar. Live ammunition was used and armed people dressed in civilian clothes, evidently embedded with security forces, violently attacked protesters.

Journalists were harassed and arrested while covering protests. Recent years have seen a rise in verbal and physical attacks on journalists, along with legal action to try to silence them. Several journalists were arrested in relation to their reporting on Sonko’s prosecution. Investigative journalist Pape Alé Niang has been jailed three times in less than one year.

The government also limited internet access and TV coverage. TV station Walf TV was suspended over its protest coverage. On 1 June, social media access was restricted and on 4 June mobile internet was shut down for several days. In August, TikTok access was blocked. Restrictions harmed both freedom of expression and livelihoods, since many small traders rely on mobile data for transactions.

Third-term tussle

A major driver of protests and Sonko’s campaign was speculation that Sall might be tempted to seek a third presidential term. The constitution appeared to be clear on the two-term limit, but Sall’s supporters claimed constitutional amendments in 2016 had reset the count. Thousands mobilised in Dakar on 12 May, organised by a coalition of over 170 civil society groups and opposition parties, to demand that Sall respect the two-term limit.

On 3 July, Sall finally announced that he wasn’t running again. But it hasn’t ended suspicion that the ruling Alliance for the Republic (APR) party will go to any lengths stay in power, including using the state’s levers to weaken the opposition.

There’s precedent here: ahead of the Sall’s re-election in 2019, two prominent opposition politicians who might have presented a serious challenge were excluded. In both cases, barely weeks before the election the Constitutional Council ruled them ineligible due to prior convictions on corruption charges that were widely believed to have been politically motivated.

That Sonko and Pastef might have stood a chance in 2024 was suggested by the results of votes in 2022. In local elections, the APR lost control of Dakar and Sonko was elected mayor of Ziguinchor city. And then in parliamentary elections, the APR lost 43 of its 125 seats and Pastef finished second, claiming 56 seats, leaving no party with a majority.

Reputation on the line

Senegal long enjoyed an international reputation for being a relatively stable and democratic country in a region that’s experienced numerous democratic setbacks. With West African countries such as Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and now Niger under military control, and others like Togo holding deeply flawed elections, Senegal stood out. It’s held several free elections with changes of power.

The country’s active and youthful civil society and relatively free media have played a huge part in sustaining democracy. When President Abdoulaye Wade sought an unconstitutional third term in 2012, social movements mobilised. The Y’en a marre (‘I’m fed up’) movement got out the youth vote to oust Wade in favour of Sall. Wade himself rode a similar youth wave in 2000. So Sall and his party are surely aware of the power of social movements and the youth vote.

A small step forward was taken recently when parliament voted to allow the two opposition candidates who’d been blocked in 2019 to stand in 2024. But the government needs to do much more to show its commitment to democratic rules.

Upholding protest rights would be a good start. The repeated use of violence and detention of protesters points to a systemic problem. No one has been held to account for killings and other rights violations. It’s high time for accountability.

Media freedoms need to be respected and people detained for exercising their civic freedoms must be released. For Senegal to live up to its reputation, Sall should strive to enter history as the president who kept democracy alive – not the one who buried it.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

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Empowering Women in Assam: Livestock Farming Brings Economic Relief Post-COVID

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Food and Agriculture

Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

Goat rearing is contributing to economic independence and improved livelihoods of women thanks to a post-COVID-19 empowerment project. CREDIT: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

MILONPUR, INDIA, Aug 8 2023 (IPS) – Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India’s northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi’s husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.

Devi says that after the COVID-19 lockdown in India in the year 2020, the family income drastically plummeted. As most of the factories were shut for months, the workers, including Devi’s husband, were jobless. Even after the lockdown ended and workers were called back to the factories, the wages dipped.

“Earlier my husband would earn no less than Rs 10 000 a month (125 USD), and after the lockdown, it wasn’t more than a mere 6 000 rupees (70 USD). My children and I would suffer for the want of basic needs like medicine and clothing, but at the same time, I was considerate of the situation and helplessness of my husband,” Devi told IPS.

However, there were few alternatives available at home that could have mitigated Devi’s predicament. With the small area of ancestral land used for cultivation, the change in weather patterns caused her family and several households in the village to reap losses.

However, in 2021, a non-government organization visited the hamlet to assess the situation in the post-COVID scenario. The villagers told the team about how most of the men in the village go out to cities and towns in search of livelihood and work as labourers in factories and that their wages have come down due to economic distress in the country.

After hectic deliberations, about ten self-help groups of women were created. They trained in livestock farming and how this venture could be turned into a profitable business.

The women were initially reluctant because they were unaware of how to make livestock farming profitable. They would ask the members of the charitable organisation questions like, “What if it fails to yield desired results? What if some terrible disease affects the animals, and what if the livestock wouldn’t generate any income for them?”

Wilson Kandulna, who was the senior member of the team, told IPS that experts were called in to train the women about cattle rearing and how timely vaccinations, proper feed, and care could make livestock farming profitable and mitigate their basic living costs. “At first, we provided ten goat kids to each women’s group and made them aware of the dos and don’ts of this kind of farming. They were quick to learn and grasped easily whatever was taught to them,” Wilson said.

He added that these women were living in economic distress due to the limited income of their husbands and were desperately anxious about the scarcity of proper education for children and other daily needs.

Devi says that as soon as she got the goat kids, she acquired basic training in feeding them properly and taking them for vaccinations to the nearby government veterinary hospital.

“Two years have passed, and now we have hundreds of goats as they reproduce quickly, and we are now able to earn a good income. During the first few months, there were issues like feeding problems, proper shelter during monsoons and summers, and how and when we should take them out for grazing. As time passed and we learned the skills, we have become very trained goat rearers,” Devi said.

Renuka, another woman in the self-help group, told IPS that for the past year, they have been continuously getting demands for goat milk from the main towns. “People know about the health benefits of goat milk. They know it is organic without any preservatives, and that is the reason we have a very high demand for it. We sell it at a good price, and at times, demand surpasses the supply,” Renuka said.

For Devi, livestock farming has been no less than a blessing. She says she earns more than five thousand rupees a month (about 60 USD) and has been able to cover daily household expenses all by herself. “I no longer rely on my husband for household expenses. I take care of it all by myself. My husband, too, is relieved, and things are getting back on track,” Devi said, smiling.

Kalpana, a 32-year-old member of the group, says the goats have increased in number, and last year, several of them were sold in the market at a good price.

“The profits were shared by the group members. Earlier, women in this village were entirely dependent on their husbands for covering their basic expenses. Now, they are economically self-reliant. They take good care of the house and of themselves,” Kalpana told IPS News.

Note: Names of some of the women have been changed on their request.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Cambodia’s Election a Blatant Farce

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Credit: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP via Getty Images

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 4 2023 (IPS)

The title shouldn’t fool you: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-ruling autocrats. A political survivor, this former military commander had been bolted to his chair since 1985, presiding over what he turned into a de facto one-party system – and now apparently a dynastic regime.

On 23 July, running virtually unopposed, Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) took 82 per cent of the vote, winning almost all seats. The only party that could have offered a challenge, the Candlelight Party, had been banned on a technicality in May.

Following the proclamation of his ‘landslide victory‘, Hun Sen finally announced his retirement, handing over his position to his eldest son, Hun Manet. Manet had already been endorsed by the CPP. Winning a parliamentary seat, which he just did, was all he had to do to become eligible. To ensure dynastic succession faced no obstacle, a constitutional amendment passed in August 2022 allows the ruling party to appoint the prime minister without parliamentary approval.

Hun Sen isn’t going away: he’ll remain CPP chair and a member of parliament, be appointed to other positions and stay at the helm of his family’s extensive business empire.

A slippery slope towards autocracy

Hun Sen came to power in a world that no longer exists. He managed to cling onto power as everything around him changed.

He fought as a soldier in the Cambodian Civil War before defecting to Vietnam, taking several government positions under the 1980s Vietnamese government of occupation. He was appointed prime minister in 1985, and when 1993 elections resulted in a hung parliament, Hun Sen refused to concede defeat. Negotiations resulted in a coalition government in which he served as joint prime minister, until he orchestrated a coup to take sole control in 1997. At the head of the CPP, he has won every election since.

In 2013 his power was threatened. A new opposition party, the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), offered a credible challenge. The CPP got its lowest share of votes and seats since 1998. Despite obvious fraud, the CNRP came dangerously close to defeating Hun Sen.

In the years that followed, Hun Sen made sure no one would challenge him again. In 2015, the CNRP’s leader Sam Rainsy was summarily ousted from the National Assembly and stripped of parliamentary immunity. A warrant was issued for his arrest, pushing him into exile. He was then barred from returning to Cambodia, and in 2017 convicted for ‘defaming’ Hun Sen. His successor at the head of the CNRP, Kem Sokha, soon faced persecution too.

In November 2017, the Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of the CNRP and imposed a five-year political ban on 118 opposition members.

As a result, the only parties that eventually ran on a supposedly opposition platform in 2018 were small parties manufactured by government allies to give the impression of competition. In the run-up to the vote, the CPP-dominated National Election Committee (NEC) threatened to prosecute anybody who urged a boycott and warned voters that criticising the CPP wasn’t allowed. What resulted was a parliament without a single dissenting voice.

There was no let off after the election, with mass arrests and mass trials of former CNRP members and civil society activists becoming commonplace. Rainsy was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment, and Sokha was given 27 years for ‘treason’. At least 39 opposition politicians are behind bars, and many more have left Cambodia.

But as the CNRP faded, the torch passed to the Candlelight Party. In June 2022 local elections, Candlelight proved that Hun Sen was right to be afraid: in an extremely repressive context, it still took over 20 per cent of the vote. And sure enough, in May 2023 the NEC disqualified Candlelight from the July election.

Civic space under assault

Political repression has been accompanied by tightening civic space restrictions.

The crackdown on independent media, underway since 2017, intensified in the run-up to the latest electoral farce. In March 2022, the government stripped three digital media outlets of their licences after they published stories on government corruption. In February 2023, Hun Sen ordered the closure of Voice of Democracy, one of the few remaining independent media outlets, after it published a story about Manet. Severe restrictions weigh on foreign media groups, some of which have been forced out of the country.

In contrast, government-owned and pro-government media organisations are able to operate freely. Major media groups are run by magnates close to the ruling family. One media conglomerate is headed by Hun Sen’s eldest daughter. As a result, most information available to Cambodians comes through the filter of power. Most media work to disseminate state-issued disinformation and discredit independent voices as agents of propaganda.

The right to protest is heavily restricted. Gatherings by banned opposition parties are prohibited and demonstrations by political groups, labour unions, social movements and essentially anyone mobilising on issues the government doesn’t want raised are routinely dispersed by security forces, often violently. Protesters are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrests and detention, and further criminalisation.

As if leaving people with no choice wasn’t enough, Hun Sen also mounted a scare campaign to force them to vote, since a low turnout would undermine the credibility of the outcome. People were threatened with repercussions if they attempted to boycott the election or spoil ballot papers. The election law was hastily amended to make this a crime.

Experience gives little ground to hope that repression will let up rather than intensify following the election. There’s also no reason to expect that Manet, long groomed for succession, will take a different path from his still-powerful predecessor. The very least the international community should do is to call out the charade of an election for what it was and refuse to buy the Cambodian regime’s whitewashing attempt.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 


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How Nigeria’s Legal System is Failing to Safeguard Widows’ Rights

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Nigerian law protects widows, but the reality they face is quite different.

Nigerian law protects widows, but the reality they face is quite different.

By Promise Eze
SOKOTO, NIGERIA, Aug 3 2023 (IPS)

In February this year, Chichi Okonkwo not only lost her husband but was stripped of everything they owned together. Her husband was severely injured in a car accident about a month earlier. Despite being rushed to a hospital in Enugu, where they resided, he succumbed to his injuries weeks later. To compound her grief, Okonkwo’s late husband’s male siblings forcibly entered her home in the city a few hours after his passing, confiscating her husband’s land documents, car, money, clothes, and marriage certificate.

In the wake of these heart-wrenching events, Okonkwo was left with nothing but her six children. The eldest is just 18.

“They took everything my husband and I owned and forcibly evicted me and my children from our home,” laments Okonkwo. “They heartlessly claimed that, as a widow, I had no rights to any of my late husband’s possessions.”

Okonkwo’s children are now out of school because she was a housewife who depended on her husband’s income and is now left with nothing. She revealed that her late husband’s siblings, who seized and were aware of his bank PIN, callously left her with a mere 1 000 naira (approximately USD 2) out of the 2 million naira ($2,600) he had in his account.

Okonkwo said her husband’s relatives swore to drag her to court to challenge her rights, but she cannot afford a lawyer due to her financial situation.

In Nigeria, there are around 15 million widows.

Unfortunately, widows in the country often face the denial of their basic human rights due to traditional and cultural practices rooted in patriarchal beliefs.

According to The World Bank, “In much of Africa, marriage is the sole basis for women’s access to social and economic rights, and these are lost upon divorce or widowhood.”

In a country like Nigeria, where men dominate the economic and political systems, women are often expected to be submissive. The challenges women face are particularly amplified when they become widows, creating a doubly marginalized subgroup. Moreover, this vulnerable position sometimes exposes widows to dehumanizing rituals and harmful practices.

These harmful practices include mourning rites that involve widows sleeping with their deceased husbands’ corpses, shaving of widows’ heads, seclusion, wearing black or white clothes, and being forced to sleep and sit on the floor or mat. Additionally, some widows are coerced into marrying other members of the deceased husband’s family.

Despite laws granting women the right to inherit their husbands’ assets, many widows can still not claim their rightful share of land and property.

Efforts to combat these practices, such as the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) enacted in 2015, have faced challenges in implementation and adoption by all states. According to the law, offenders are subject to a 500,000 naira ($648) fine or two years in prison. But arrests and prosecution of offenders are rare. And gender-based violence has persisted, which includes violence towards widows.

The enforcement of laws against offenders has been hindered by religious and cultural norms that promote silence and suppression of victimization cases. Victims often face threats or pressure from family members, community, or religious leaders whenever they try to report incidents to law enforcement.

Like Okonkwo, Sarah Temidayo’s life took a tragic turn when she lost her husband of four years to lung cancer in 2019. However, her grief was compounded by the actions of her husband’s relatives, who invaded her home in Lagos mere hours after his passing, intent on claiming everything that belonged to him. They even went so far as to take her wedding gown, certificates, and her then-five-year-old daughter’s clothes. Devastated and without recourse, Temitope sought justice through the legal system, but her efforts have yielded no results.

“I did not pick a pin out of my house. I had to start my life all over again,” she says.

Unfortunately, the nightmare did not end there for Temidayo. She was subjected to constant threats from her husband’s mother, who continued to torment her and accuse her of killing her son through witchcraft. These threats escalated to a terrifying climax when assassins attacked her at a bus stop in March 2021. She managed to survive, albeit with six bullets lodged in her leg. Despite reporting the incident to the police, no investigation was conducted, leaving her feeling abandoned by the system meant to protect her.

According to Ifeoma Oguejiofor, a legal practitioner in Southeast Nigeria, widows face challenges in seeking justice due to the understaffed courts, which can cause delays in the resolution of cases. Additionally, the financial burden of hiring a lawyer becomes a significant obstacle for many widows, making it difficult to access proper legal representation to handle their cases.

“There is a significant difference between the laws written in books and the actual pursuit of justice. According to the law, a surviving spouse, whether in a traditional marriage, a long period of cohabitation, or a marriage registered under the act, is entitled to inherit the estate of their deceased spouse. However, achieving justice through the legal system is often a prolonged and costly process, particularly for widows who have already lost a substantial portion of their assets to their husband’s relatives,” she explains.

“It’s high time the government, traditional rulers, and religious clerics enforce laws to protect widows in Nigeria. No woman should be discriminated against because she lost her husband,” says Hope Nwakwesi, the founder of Almanah Hope Foundation, a non-governmental organization focused on supporting Nigerian widows.

Nwakwesi, a widow who lost her police husband in 1994, endured distressing cultural rites, including having her hair shaved and wearing a mourning dress for a year. She faced further hardships as her relatives forcibly took her property, and she was expelled from her workplace and home in the police barracks. Despite seeking help, many, including police officers who offered assistance, demanded sexual favors in return.

Now, Nwakwesi is advocating for a bill in Nigeria’s legislative chamber. The bill aims to eradicate repressive cultural practices against widows and safeguard their fundamental human rights.

“My goal is to get the bill I’m fighting for approved and signed into law by the Senate. The current Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law is too vague and lacks specific clauses for protecting the rights of widows. Once the new bill becomes law, those who discriminate against widows will face arrest and prosecution by law enforcement agencies,” says Nwakwesi.

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, a civil rights activist and founding director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, noted that “For the government to protect widows effectively, they should review and update existing laws related to widows’ rights to ensure they are comprehensive, enforceable, and in line with international human rights standards.”

“Merely having laws in place is not enough; the government must ensure their effective implementation at all levels of the justice system. This requires training and sensitizing law enforcement officials, judges, and legal practitioners on the rights of widows and the importance of protecting them,” she adds.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Afghan Girls, Women Deprived of Education, Find Hope in Africa

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Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and President of SOLA, speaks at the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/ IPS

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and President of SOLA, speaks at the Women Deliver conference in Rwanda. Credit: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Aug 1 2023 (IPS)

When providing education to her small group of Afghan girls, who had been studying at a boarding school back home, became tenuous, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, relocated them to Rwanda.

She had set up a pioneering school under the project SOLA, the Afghan word for peace, and a short form for School of Leadership Afghanistan. But as the Taliban swept to power in August 2021, she closed the doors of the school, destroyed any school records which could help identify the girls, and on August 25, relocated 250 members of the SOLA community, including the student body and graduates from the programme, totally more than 100 girls, to Rwanda.

Basij-Rasikh, co-founder and SOLA’s President said a major challenge had been the lack of resources and capacity to teach Afghan girls after the return of the Taliban deprived right to education of girls in secondary schools and above.

As the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder of the nation’s only all-girls boarding school, initially ran the school out of a former principal’s living room. But that soon became untenable.

Speaking on the sidelines of The Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023), which took place in Kigali from 17-20 July 2023, Basij-Rasikh, who completed her undergraduate studies in the United States, explained that when Kabul fell under the control of the Taliban, she managed within a short time to evacuate the entire school community to Rwanda.

“Although we managed to move the school to a safe country, it is still embarrassing and shameful for me since Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls’ access to education has been suspended,” she said.

Initially, SOLA started as a scholarship program where Afghan youth would be identified and could access quality education abroad and, later on, go back to their home country as highly-skilled Afghans in whichever profession they chose.

“When the US announced that they were to withdraw their troops in Afghanistan, it created a lot of anxiety among young Afghans who were in the West hoping to return to the country.”

Basij-Rasikh regrets that some of her former students, who were able to leave Afghanistan after the Taliban’s return, are still struggling to continue their education overseas.

“We wish to see many Afghan girls return to schools,” she said, explaining that the migration status of the students in many countries restricted their access to education.

Since the school opened last year’s admissions season, Shabana Basij-Rasikh and her team have been inviting Afghan girls worldwide to apply and join the rest in Rwanda. Last year they enrolled 27 girls in their first intake.

“The major challenge is that there are several hundreds of thousands of girls who want to join our campus, but space is limited, and so places are being granted on merit and need,” Shabana told IPS.

Shabana argues investing in girls’ education is a smart investment; she is convinced that the current situation in Afghanistan must and should not be accepted or supported by any country around the world.

On September 18, 2021, a month after taking over the country, the Taliban ordered the reopening of only boys’ secondary schools. A few months later, in March 2022, according to human rights organizations, the Taliban again pledged to reopen all schools, but they officially closed girls’ secondary schools.

“These girls deserve the opportunity to realize their full potential, and the international community has an important role to play,” Shabana said.

UNESCO’s latest figures show that 2,5 million or 80 percent of school-aged Afghan girls and women are out of school.  The order suspending university education for women, announced in December last year, affects more than 100,000 students attending government and private institutions, according to the UN agency.

On the sidelines of the Women Deliver Conference 2023, Senegalese President Macky Sall pledged that his government would offer 100 scholarships for women who have seen their right to education decimated under Taliban rule in Afghanistan to pursue their university degrees in Senegal.

Rwanda is one of several African countries that agreed to temporarily host evacuated Afghans.

Sall, who was reacting to the concerns raised by Basij-Rasikhat, said his Government was ready to give chance to Afghan girls to pursue their studies.

So far, SOLA school has received 2,000 applications across 20 countries where some Afghans are living.

In 2022, it received 180 applications from Afghans living in 10 countries, but only 27 girls were admitted.

“That explains how families in Afghanistan are ready to support the girls in moving abroad to pursue their education,” Shabana said.

“Boarding schools that allow Afghan girls to study and live together are the best way to promote their education.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Civil Society Space in Southern Africa Shrinking as Government Repression Rises

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Several Southern African countries have or are in the process of enacting legislation that limits the civil society space, with implications for human rights. Credit: CIVICUS Monitor

Several Southern African countries have or are in the process of enacting legislation that limits the civil society space, with implications for human rights. Credit: CIVICUS Monitor

By Busani Bafana
BULAWAYO, Jul 31 2023 (IPS)

Freedom of expression is under threat as governments in Southern Africa have enacted laws restricting civil society organizations, says global rights advocacy organisation, CIVICUS, warning that human rights violations are on the increase globally.

“The state of civil society is unfortunately not improving; civil restrictions continue across the world,” said David Kobe, the advocacy Lead at CIVICUS.

“More than 2 billion people live in countries that are rated as closed, which is the worst rating any country can have – this means that 28 percent of the world’s population are not able to speak out when there is corruption or human rights violations restrictions or cannot write articles as journalists without facing appraisals,” Kobe told IPS in an interview, noting that the organization’s human rights tool is indicating growing suppression of civil space across the world.

The CIVICUS Monitor, a tool accessing the state of civic space in more than 190 countries, provides evidence of restrictions on human rights by governments. The CIVICUS Monitor rates the state of civil space ‘open, ‘repressed’, and ‘closed’ according to each country.

Kobe notes that human rights violations are increasing globally with more restrictions on civil society in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The picture is not different in the Southern Africa region where restrictions on civil space have been continuing, and these have included censorship, violent response to protests and restrictive laws as seen in Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe

Closing Civil Society Space

Zimbabwe remains on the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist as attacks on civic space continue ahead of the scheduled 2023 national elections.

Last November, Zimbabwe approved the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Amendment Bill, 2022, known as the Patriotic Act. The law seeks to create the offence of “wilfully damaging the sovereignty and national interest of Zimbabwe” and will essentially criminalise the lobbying of foreign governments to extend or implement sanctions against Zimbabwe or its officials.

Furthermore, the Zimbabwe government gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Amendment Bill in November 2021, amending the Private Voluntary Organisations Act, which governs non-profit organizations. The main aim of the Bill is to comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations to strengthen the country’s legal framework to combat money laundering, financing terrorism and proliferation.

Civil society organizations warn that the Bill could hinder their activities and financing with potential adverse impacts on economic development. Besides, NGOs argue that they are a low-risk sector with no precedence of financing terrorism and money laundering.

Musa Kika, Executive Director of Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, says the PVO will affect the operations of NGOs, including deterring donors from funding PVOs, fearing the money could end up under the grip of the government. Besides, the Bill has a provision giving the Minister of Justice unfettered powers to place under supervision or surveillance, using subjective discretion, those PVOs the Minister deems to be high risk.

“Continued hostility and harassment on the part of the government towards the work of CSOs in the country will thus only result in a hugely detrimental effect on their efforts in advancing the protection of and respect for the basic human rights and freedoms of ordinary Zimbabwean civilians as espoused under Zimbabwe’s Constitution,” Kika said. He noted that civil society organisations were operating in a tough environment in Zimbabwe where the government does not trust them, especially those working in the fields of governance and human rights.

“We have a government that does not want to account,” said Kika. “We have had many human rights activists who have been arrested on flimsy charges…Terrorism finance is being used as a cover, but the motive is to close the democratic space because the government and accountability in human rights and governance are sworn enemies.”

In Zimbabwe, NGOs have, in partnership with the government, supported development, providing a range of services in health, education, social protection, humanitarian assistance, environmental management, emergency response and democracy building.  A research report commissioned by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum in collaboration with the Southern Defenders and Accountability Lab has warned of huge job and financial losses if the Bill is passed into law.

United Nations experts have urged Zimbabwe’s President Emerson Mnangagwa to reject enacting a bill that would severely restrict civic space and the right to freedom of association in the country.

However, President Mnangagwa has defended the passage of the PVO Bill, vowing to speedily “sign it into law once it reaches my desk”. In a commentary in his weekly column published by the government-owned Sunday Mail, Mnangagwa said signing the bill into law will usher Zimbabwe into a “new era of genuine philanthropic and advocacy work, unsullied by ulterior political or financial motives.”

Mnangagwa said the law was meant to defend the country from foreign infiltration.

Engendering Patriotism but Endangering Democracy

Zimbabwe has also recently approved another repressive law known as the ‘Patriot Act’.

“The Patriotic Act is an extremely repressive and unconstitutional piece of legislation that has serious ramifications for citizens’ rights, particularly the rights of freedom of expression in the lead up to the elections,” human rights lawyer, Dough Coltart, tells IPS in an interview.

“There is a very real need to educate the citizens on what the ramifications of this Act are for people’s lives because the Act has far-reaching consequences for the entire country and will essentially stifle any public dialogue around the challenges we are facing as a country.”

“The Patriot law is a bad piece of legislation which is an affront to the practice of ethical journalism in Zimbabwe,” Njabulo Ncube, Coordinator of the Zimbabwe National Editors’ Forum (ZINEF), told IPS. “It stinks to the highest skies as it criminalizes the practice of good journalism. It is anti-media freedom and free expression…civil society organisations have also been caught in the mix; they cannot effectively make government account for its actions.”

Democracy Dimming

The situation in Zimbabwe is echoed in some countries across Southern Africa, where governments are cracking down on CSOs in the name of protecting national sovereignty and the threats of money laundering and terrorism financing.

In Angola, the country’s National Assembly, on May 25 2023, passed a draft NGO Statute, which CSOs have criticized for limiting freedom of association by giving the state excessive powers to interfere with civil society activities.

According to the Movimento de Defensores de Direitos Humanos de Angola (Movement of Human Rights Defenders of Angola, KUTAKESA), the government has targeted civil society with legislation that is meant for terrorists and money launderers, though it has never been proven in any court that a CSO has committed an act of terrorism in Angola.

On the contrary, the rationale of this legislation constitutes institutional terrorism, the target of which are CSOs, said Godinho Cristóvão, a jurist, human rights defender and executive director of KUTEKA in an interview with the CIVICUS Monitor.

“The Angolan authorities should have aligned themselves with the democratic rule of law and respected the work of CSOs and HRDs,” Cristóvão is quoted as saying.

“Instead, there has been an increase in threats, harassment and illegal arrests of human rights defenders who denounce or hold peaceful demonstrations against acts of bad governance and violations of citizens’ rights and freedoms. There have been clear setbacks with regard to the guarantee of fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the constitution, as well as the rights set out in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights treaties Angola has ratified.”

In Mozambique, a new NGO on Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act, which overregulates CSOs, is seen as the death knell for the civic movement in the country. The Act was approved in October 2022 under the pretext of fighting terrorism. It has further curtailed freedoms of expression, information, press, assembly and public participation.

Paula Monjane, Executive Director of the Civil Society Learning and Capacity Building Centre (CESC), a Mozambican non-profit civil society organisation, said currently, the legislation was being proposed to silence dissenting voices and people fighting for better governance of public affairs and the protection of human rights in the country.

The draft Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Act law establishes a legal regime for the creation, organisation and functioning of CSOs, and Monjane highlighted that it contains several norms that violate freedom of association despite this right being safeguarded by the constitution and international human rights treaties.

“It gives the government absolute and discretionary powers to ‘create’, control the functioning of, suspend and extinguish CSOs,” said Monjane, adding, “If the bill is approved, it will legitimise already existing practices restricting civic space, allowing the persecution of dissenting voices and organisations critical of the government, up to banning them from continuing to operate.”

Monjane said if the bill is passed into law CSOs in Mozambique will push for it to be declared unconstitutional and will ask the African Union, through the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the United Nations, through the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to urgently condemn it.

On actions to foster human rights and human rights defenders, Kobe said civil society organisations must be supported to hold governments accountable for upholding national and international human rights conventions that they have subscribed to.

The Universal Periodic Review, an assessment of the state of civic and human rights of a country over a four-year period, provides recommendations to governments enabling them to open civic space and remove restrictive laws.

“Governments need to implement the recommendations of the UPR and not treat them as a formality for them to be seen by the international community as respecting human rights when they are not,” said Kobe, adding that encouraging governments to implement the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development was also a way of getting them to see development alongside human rights.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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