Kashmiri journalists at a rare protest against a government clampdown on freedom of expression. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
LONDON, May 2 2017 (IPS)

Images of protestors flooding the streets – whether in Caracas, Bucharest, Istanbul or Washington DC – send a powerful message to those in power, especially when they are plastered across newspaper front pages.

In far too many countries, the response has been to shut down the space for citizens to organise and undermine the ability for dissent to be reported. Even in the most mature of democracies, the ability of citizens to organise and mobilise, and the freedom of journalists to report when they do, are being undermined. In an era of rising populism and spreading curbs on fundamental freedoms, we need to do more to protect civic rights and press freedom.

When people hit the streets to express dissent, headlines are not always guaranteed.

In some countries, journalists risk imprisonment, disappearance or death for reporting on voices of dissent. In other places, the few powerful interests that control mainstream media channels are in cahoots and play down the scale or importance of protest. And the world over, independent and smaller media outlets – that are critical to diverse media – are struggling to stay afloat.

The first, and most worrying reason why protests don’t make the nightly news is because in many countries around the world journalists who cover protests are putting themselves at risk. In countries where civic participation is restricted or closed, journalists, like activists, risk losing their jobs, their freedom and even their lives reporting on protests.

In countries where civic participation is restricted or closed, journalists, like activists, risk losing their jobs, their freedom and even their lives reporting on protests.
According to the CIVICUS Monitor attacks on journalists are one of the three most commonly reported violations of civic space, alongside the detention of human rights defenders and the use of excessive force during protests. The Monitor, which measures the openness of civic space in 195 countries, found that journalists are most often attacked as a result of their political reporting on protests, conflict reporting, and for exposing government corruption.

Civil society and media exist in an ecosystem where attacks on one are likely to have an impact on the other. Where human rights defenders and civil society organisations find their freedoms under threat, so to do journalists. Policing media coverage is just one of the ways that governments close or repress civic space.

While social media and citizen journalists and bloggers have made it more difficult for mainstream media outlets to ignore mass demonstrations, some media outlets actively seek to undermine the renewed interest they generate. Media Matters for America, a monitoring agency, has recorded repeated instances of corporate media in the United States making false claims, such as that protests are staged or protestors are paid. Instead of interviewing citizens participating in the marches, cable news programs turn to their usual group of pundits for comment. For example, after the recent Science March, some cable television shows hosted panels featuring climate change deniers and no actual scientists.

In some cases journalists have forgotten that the voices of ordinary citizens, are just as important, if not more important, than the voices of powerful politicians and wealthy elites. And even where journalists do seek to quote representatives from civil society they too often turn to the same narrow set of voices for comment, since smaller non-governmental organisations often lack the media resources of larger international organisations.

Another important reason why journalists do not cover protests is because they do not have the resources to do so. The economic pressures on commercial media are also harming press freedom. Independent, diverse media often lack the financial resources of media owned by wealthy corporations or governments with their own political agendas. Many media outlets now rely on donations or membership models to survive.

All of these restrictions have led many activists to turn to reporting on protests themselves. Some of the most powerful journalism now comes from citizen bloggers, often providing invaluable news from closed political spaces and behind the battle lines.

As the boundaries between citizen and professional journalists blur it is becoming increasingly important to protect the space for all of those people who seek to inform, expose and educate.

Whether it is protestors, journalists, civil society organisations, human rights defenders, or climate scientists we need to protect the ability for people to be able to express dissent. And we need to stand together.

Without journalists, scientists marching in the street, would not be able to be able to share their messages with the world. Without photojournalists, vast underestimates of crowd sizes from officials may continue to be used to undermine popular movements.

Asking questions, speaking truth to power, shining a light on corruption. These simple actions carry increased risks in 2017, as powerful elites seek to cement their positions of power. In this febrile political environment, civic space and press freedom feel more important than ever.

Excerpt:

India’s vibrant civil society is under threat. Credit: K.S.Harikrishnan.

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah and Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 5 2016 (IPS)

Civil society has been described as the oxygen of democracy by no less than UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. As the world’s largest democracy, India has a proud history of inspiring people’s movements and non-profit organisations looked up to by social change advocates across the globe.

Yet, recent incidents of vilification and harassment of civil society activists and their organisations have escalated to such an extent that the country’s international reputation as a successful multi-cultural democracy, able to accommodate diverse opinions is at stake.

And it need not – it should not – be so. Civil society has played a crucial role in India’s socio-political evolution in the pre and post-independence eras. In the nineteenth century, Jyotirao and Savitri Bai Phule led the movement for women’s empowerment and an end to caste based discrimination while Raja Rammohan Roy challenged child marriage and Sati. This tradition of social justice advocacy has continued in the 21^st century. The 2005 Right to Information Act which draws from the best of international legislation grew out of a civil society led national campaign by anti-corruption activists. The 2006 Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, is another example of progressive legislation pioneered by civil society.

On the international stage, India’s vibrant civil society often characterised as a barometer of the country’s democratic health has long been an important source of its soft power. When the UN Declaration of Human Rights was being drafted in 1948, Hansa Mehta drew on her social activism to ensure that the first clause expressly stated that all human beings rather than just ‘men’ are created equal in dignity and rights. In Mahatma Gandhi, India produced perhaps the most prominent civil society activist of the twentieth century. Many of today’s international civil society leaders come from the country.

The current head of Amnesty International is Indian. But that hasn’t protected the organisation from a situation of having to temporarily close its offices in the face of threats and dubious accusations of promoting sedition for highlighting human rights violations. Fueled by such increasingly regular incidents, several well-respected voices, both within and outside India, are condemning the climate of intolerance that now weighs heavily upon the country whose Bill of Rights has provided a human rights template for the constitutions of several other states.

On his recent visit to South Africa, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was presented with an open letter urging an end to the harassment of Lawyer’s Collective, an Indian non-profit organisation that has played a pioneering role in advancing women’s rights, rights of people living with HIV and access to affordable medicines. To fulfil its mandate, Lawyer’s Collective relies on international philanthropy much in the same way that corporate entities rely on foreign direct investment. Nevertheless, Lawyer’s Collective’s permission to receive international funding has been suspended under the infamous Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) thereby crippling its work.

The FCRA has been condemned  by no less than three UN experts as failing to comply with international human rights norms and standards.  First conceived during the ‘Emergency’ of 1975-77 when democratic freedoms were suspended by Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress Party Government, the FCRA subjects non-profit organisations to a complex maze of bureaucratic requirements and arbitrary discretion to receive resources from international philanthropic institutions or development agencies. Its use of vague terms such as ‘security, strategic, scientific or economic interest of the state’ offers a convenient excuse to choke the funding of organisations uncovering inconvenient truths about high level corruption or rights violations.

Ironically, while several public spirited groups engaged in social justice initiatives are being harassed under the FCRA, senior government officials are courting foreign direct investment in the private sector through the ‘Make in India’ programme. The enhanced – and unfair – scrutiny of civil society for receiving international funds has fueled deceptive characterisations of activists as somehow working at the behest of outside forces; a misnomer in a country where to be employed by a multinational corporation is a popular middle class aspiration supported by the political class and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government.

As India’s political and economic influence increases globally, developments in the country are being closely followed by the international community. Arguably, India’s quest to play a critical role on the international stage would be better served by recourse to its historical commitment to innate democratic values and support for people’s struggles. Notably, in July this year, India’s diplomatic representatives voted in favour of a UN resolution urging states to create and maintain a safe and enabling environment for civil society but worryingly sought to disassociate the country from text urging civil society funding provisions to be in compliance with international human rights obligations.

A further rebuke to the international system was delivered on September 16 by the country’s security apparatus when Khurram Parvez, coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Society Coalition was arbitrarily prevented from boarding a flight to attend the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva. He was later arrested and detained under the notorious Public Safety Act which allows preventive detention without due process. Arguably, such petty behaviour weakens India’s standing in international forums. A mature democracy should not only be able to accommodate dissent but rather point to it as evidence of the robustness of its institutions.

With its inspiring constitution born out of its heroic freedom struggle, India should be championing not undermining civil society freedoms at home and abroad. After all, social and political pressures are best released by enabling constructive activism and engagement. In the end India’s democracy will be strengthened by diversity of opinion and allowing space for critical views.

Excerpt:

Police use tear gas and water canons in Istanbul to disperse demonstrators protesting the new Internet bill in February 2014. Credit: Emrah Gurel/IPS.

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
JOHANNESBURG, Apr 28 2016 (IPS)

Last month, after receiving threats for opposing a hydroelectric project, Berta Caceres, a Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, was murdered. A former winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her opposition to one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects, Berta was shot dead in her own home.

In the same month, South African anti-mining activist, Sikhosiphi Bazooka Radebe, leader of a fiercely fought campaign to protect a pristine stretch of the Pondoland Wild Coast, was also shot dead.

Across the world, civic activists are being detained, tortured and killed. The space for citizens to organise and mobilise is being shut down; dissenting voices are being shut up. In 2015, at least 156 human rights activists were murdered. 156 that we know of.

The scale of the threat cannot be underestimated. The most recent analysis by my CIVICUS colleagues shows that, in 2015, significant violations of civic space were recorded in over 100 countries, up from 96 in 2014. People living in these countries account for roughly 86% of the world’s population. This means that 6 out of 7 people live in states where their basic rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression are being curtailed or denied. No single region stands out; truly, this is a worldwide trend, a global clampdown.

Hostility towards civil society is becoming normalised as threats emanate from an increasing range of state and non-state actors: corrupt politicians and officials, unaccountable security forces, unscrupulous businesses and religious fundamentalists. But perhaps more worrying is the demonisation of civil society in mainstream political discourse. A recent bill in Israel, touted by its supporters as the ‘Transparency Bill’, places rigorous new disclosure demands on any Israeli non-profit organisation that receives more than 50% of its funding from “Foreign Political Entities’, in other words from foreign governments, the EU or UN. Following an escalating global trend, the bill seeks to cast Israeli CSOs as disloyal ‘foreign agents’, demanding that their public communications state the source of their funding and calling for their employees to wear distinctive tags.

In the UK recent government efforts to restrict the lobbying activities of civil society organisations prompted over 140 charities to express their concern. A proposed new grant agreement clause seeks to prevent UK charities from using their funds to enter into any dialogue with parliament, government or a political party. In India, Prime Minister Modi has cautioned his judiciary against being influenced by what he called, ‘five star activists’. Insinuating that the civil society sector is elitist and out of touch with realities on the ground, the comments lent renewed impetus to the country’s ongoing crackdown on critical civil rights activists and NGOs.

The recent proliferation of counter-terrorism measures has also served to further stigmatise and stifle the sector. By suggesting that non-profit organisations are particularly vulnerable to abuse or exploitation by terrorist groups, governments have justified new laws and regulatory restrictions on their legitimate activities and the political space they inhabit. Freedom of speech is being silenced, funding sources cut off; the effect has been debilitating.

State surveillance of online activities is also on the rise as authorities note the power of the internet and social media as a tool for citizen mobilization. Governments have woken up to the power of civil society. The deepest fear of repressive regimes is no longer necessarily the rise of new political opposition parties; it is 100,000 of their citizens taking to the streets in the pursuit of change. And so a concerted push-back has begun, an effort to tame civil society, to smother its ability to catalyse social transformation.

We need to push back on these incursions on civic space, urgently and across the world. We need to be challenging our governments over rights violations, about the murder of activists, about their progress in fighting poverty, climate change and inequality.

There is much cause for hope. Last year, a coalition of Tunisian civil society organisations won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in bringing a country back from the brink of civil war and laying the foundations of a pluralistic democracy. The latest innovations in protest and movement building, in technologies that can liberate and mobilise citizens, in citizen-generated data that can empower campaigners and increase transparency around the monitoring of our global goals: all of these signal a new era of dynamic civic activism. Over the last few days more than 500 leading activists and thinkers gathered at International Civil Society Week 2016 in Bogota, Colombia to plot civil society’s global fight-back. It is fitting that this meeting took place against a backdrop of the peace negotiations that Colombian civil society has played such a key role in making possible.

Our gathering has the potential to be a defining moment for the future of democratic struggles. There will be more setbacks, low points and sacrifices to come but the demands for change won’t go away. Nor will civil society’s ability to affect it. A new, radically different vision for the future of civic action is being formulated. And those of us who believe in a healthy, independent civil society have more responsibility than ever before to keep on making our case. Knowing the threats she faced, Berta Caceres said, ‘We must undertake the struggle in all parts of the world, wherever we may be, because we have no spare or replacement planet. We have only this one and we have to take action’. She was right.

Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah is the Secretary General of CIVICUS, the global civil society alliance.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of IPS.

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
JOHANNESBURG, Oct 26 2015 (IPS)

You probably didn’t notice it was World Statistics Day last week because, let’s be honest, statistics don’t have the most exciting reputation. Thankfully, I have a feeling this is about to change, big time.

Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah

For those of us who work in civil society, particularly in international development, things are going to change dramatically – and not a moment too soon. The companies that sell us shampoo, the pollsters who advise our politicians and the national security agencies who monitor our movements have already learned to use data in fascinating and sometimes scary ways. Yet the global development community has lagged behind.

For example, in analysing the Millennium Development Goals, we rely on patchy, often outdated data that was as much as five years old, often collected using retrospective household surveys. This need no longer be the case.

Everywhere we look, we see armies of people equipped with tools they can use to monitor and report on every aspect of human development, from corruption to health services and education: a new ecosystem of many and varied players producing and curating data. This sort of people-powered accountability will become a crucial driver of progress towards the new Sustainable Development Goals.

We need no longer set our course and fly blind, landing only once every few years to check our co-ordinates and refuel. It is possible to have the data at our fingertips that will enable us to continually reassess priorities and re-allocate targeted resources.

In order to translate such possibility into reality, CIVICUS has joined forces with more than 20 other international organisations, including governments, the United Nations and private sector bodies, in a Global Partnership on Sustainable Data. For our own part, we are pioneering thedatashift.org, an initiative designed to build the capacity and confidence of civil society organisations in creating and using citizen-generated data to monitor development progress, demand accountability and campaign for transformative change.

Global and multi-sectoral partnerships like this one will be crucial in driving investment in official government produced statistics, in funding innovation and in improving data literacy and use. One of our biggest challenges will be to plug traditional sources of data in much more innovative and effective ways into the wealth of data already being produced by the private sector, by citizens, by universities and by NGOs. We live in a data-rich world. Yet too often banks of data exist in silos, isolated by their disparate formats. Difficult to access and still more difficult to interpret, these become data graveyards.

Of course, our efforts to resurrect this data and to bring into play the many new sources of information available in pursuit of global development goals, are not without dangers. Issues of privacy and public trust are foremost. Safeguarding against potential abuses of data will be fundamental to the success of this revolution.

We must also be prepared for statistics to become a politically sensitive battleground. For example, the recent Tanzanian Statistics Act could make it illegal to describe any data that has not been approved by the government as “official.” The official intention – if I can describe it as such – is to support a more robust statistics body at government level, rather than to prohibit free speech. But the move points towards a more profound struggle to control who narrates the story of progress.

As civil society groups drive an increased demand for and use of data, they are achieving changes in government policy, a fundamental power-shift in the relationship between the state and its citizens. Statistics might seem dull, but there is little doubt that they wield enormous power.

Fifteen years ago, as an intern at UNDP’s Human Development Report Office, I remember feeling proud that we were talking about measuring progress in ways that went beyond the gross domestic product (GDP). Since then of course, we’ve seen the development of numerous wellbeing, happiness and social progress indices. But I’ve also come to realise the true limitation of all these metrics: almost all of them rely on experts, most often sitting in London or New York, to define the parameters of social progress; to decide who and what matters enough to be counted; to decide which story to tell.

In the next few years, I hope that we will move towards a more democratic (crowd sourced?) model of defining human development and, in so doing, paint a far richer, more nuanced picture of social progress.

Five years ago, the theme for the first official World Statistics Day was “celebrating the many achievements of official statistics.” This year it was about “better data; better lives.” It is an indication of how far we have already come. By the time World Statistics Day comes around in 20 October 2020 – get it in your diaries now – we will have seen far-reaching changes in the way we curate statistics to both shape and reveal the story of sustainable development.

(End)

Excerpt: