When Ukrainian refugees arrive at German train stations these days, it is often the volunteers who give them some food, a bottle of water, find them accommodation and help with the interpretation. The crisis highlights the power of civil society. State authorities alone may not have been able to provide the appropriate answers, as citizens have the ability to do.
“Only 3% of the world’s population is lucky enough to live in countries where civil society can function,” Zilke Pfeiffer, head of Human Rights and Peace’s NGO Bread for the World, told DW. “Brot fur die Welt”). Of the nearly 8 billion people on the planet, that is just 240 million. At the same time, more than 7 billion people live in countries where critical voices are silenced, persecuted, arrested and fundamental rights violated.
These figures come from the new Civil Society Atlas, which is being presented for the fifth time by the German Evangelical Church NGO. Atlanta confirms a trend: democracy is declining worldwide, human and political rights are being pressured in more and more countries.
Civil society exists even in China
The Atlas of Civil Society relies heavily on the Johannesburg-based NGO CIVICUS Monitor, which evaluates a number of reports and statistics from partner organizations from around the world. Countries are divided into five categories, from “open” to “closed” in relation to Civil Society.
According to this list, 14 countries are downgraded this year. Among them are the Czech Republic and Belgium, which move from the “open” category to the “limited” category: “In the case of Belgium, this is due to the suppression of peaceful demonstrations between 2020 and 2021,” explains Zilke Pfeiffer.
“Civil society exists everywhere,” Rupert Graf Strahvic told DW. “Based on what we know, even in China. Maybe even in countries like North Korea and Russia, but of course under very different circumstances,” said the civil society expert at the Maecenat Institute.
In Russia, conditions worsened because of the war
In Russia, which is classified as “oppressed”, the situation has worsened in recent years. “Conditions have worsened since the invasion of Ukraine,” said Silke Pfeiffer. “Protesters are being arrested en masse, the media are being shut down and public reporting on certain issues is not allowed. Important voices of Civil Society are being forced to go abroad.”
Graf Strahvic believes that civil society benefits from digitization. “The ability to disseminate information was one of the reasons why Civil Society has been able to grow over the last 30 years,” says the German researcher. The power of digital media is also evident in the efforts of authoritarian regimes to upgrade their technology to restrict Internet freedoms and rights.
Atlanta also contains references to a highly active medium, which is being received more and more often: The “download” of the internet. For example in Tanzania in 2021 before the presidential elections. Or in India, which likes to call itself “the largest democracy in the world”, where last year free internet access was cut off more than 100 times in various parts of the country.
Matthias von Hein
Edited by: Stefanos Georgakopoulos
Source: Deutsche Welle
Source: Capital
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