Time Is Running Out: Civic Space Closing Rapidly in the Middle East a Report by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) September 2018
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Time is Running Out: Civic Space Closing Rapidly in the Middle East A Report by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) September 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3 II. Sample of Tactics of Closure of Civic Space in the MENA Region ............... 4 1. Bahrain .............................................................................................................. 4 2. Iraq .................................................................................................................... 6 3. Saudi Arabia ..................................................................................................... 7 4. Yemen .............................................................................................................. 10 5. MENA Region at Large ................................................................................... 11 III. Recommendations ......................................................................................... 14 IV. Conclusion .................................................................................................... 16 2 I. Introduction The emerging constraint on activism and advocacy for human rights in countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the closure and absence of civic space. Civic space constitutes the room for activism as well as the grounds on which freedoms are institutionalised to be protected by engagement with the public. The lack thereof and imposed restrictions on civic space in the region is a direct factor behind the wider public disengagement with human rights violations and violent government crackdowns on human rights defenders (HRDs). Therefore, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) has produced this new report as a follow-up to numerous formal and informal discussions about civic space, such as those developed at the Gulf and Neighbouring Countries Platform in January 2018 and during the civic space conference that it convened in August 2017 with key international and regional civil society organisations (CSOs). During both events, participants surveyed the state of civic space in the region by identifying threats and closure tactics, and concluded with a set of recommendations to protect civic space. The main takeaway of the August 2017 conference was that the closure of civic space is a global phenomenon; yet it is pressingly challenging in the MENA region due to the repressiveness of its governments and their authoritarian systems that challenge any room for independent CSOs’ work especially when related to human rights. Since the conference in August 2017, participating organisations -including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, CIVICUS, ARTICLE 19 and IFEX - have acknowledged this important juncture in human rights advocacy in the region. Therefore, they have increased their focus on the closure of civic space by regarding it as a chronic problem in the MENA region and elsewhere that requires some immediate and feasible solutions. It is important to highlight that in using the term ‘civic space’, it is not intended to limit our understanding of the exercise of rights and freedoms to the physical realm only. Civic space encompasses and surpasses the physical versus cyber demarcation. It is the room in which multilayered and diverse activism occurs across different mediums. As such, it is particularly more manifest, and strengthened due to the centrality of the Internet and social media, especially in the region, which has facilitated the emergence of civic space virtually in cyberspace. Therefore, the threat is heightened as government efforts in restricting civic space occur both online and offline, complicating repressive measures taken by governments to excessively put HRDs under surveillance that results in their prosecution for both online and offline activism. For more on the topic, see GCHR’s report issued in June 2018: “Mapping Cybercrime Laws and Violations of Digital Rights in the Gulf and neighbouring Countries.” The recommendations provided later in this report are guided by the discussions GCHR has held with partners, along with the principles of the Civic Charter, the Global Framework for People’s Participation: “The Civic Charter is grounded in our common humanity and universally accepted freedoms and principles. It provides a framework for people’s participation that identifies their rights within existing international law and agreements.” 3 CIVICUS Monitor Ratings evaluate the openness and strength of civic space in respective countries. In this regard, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are rated ‘closed’ which indicates that civic space is not sanctioned legally or by practice. Annihilation of attempts to challenge this closure is met with extremely repressive measures by governments and non-state actors. Another three countries, Iraq, Qatar and Oman, are ‘repressed’ and this implies that there is a window for activism, however, it is subject to the same highly repressive measures as in ‘closed’ countries. Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan are ranked as ‘obstructed’, where CSOs may operate but civil society faces a combination of legal and practical constraints. The high risk endured by HRDs and CSOs in closed and repressed countries discourages and challenges them from pursuing their work. GCHR is a partner of the CIVICUS Monitor, reporting on the Gulf and neighbouring countries (see segment of map on cover.) II. Sample of Tactics of Closure of Civic Space in the MENA Region This section of the report is dedicated to highlighting the main violations of human rights and attacks on HRDs in the region - online and offline - that directly constitute the restrictions and closure of civic space. It includes a survey of the different means of targeting HRDs and the contours of a disabling environment actively shaped by governments. We sample key cases of repression and targeting as seen in four emblematic Gulf and neighbouring countries. Primarily, there was a proliferation of cases targeting HRDs who are invested in different human rights issues, including recent targeting of HRDs advocating for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and Iran. Examples of restrictions on civic space by devising and using judicial and executive mandates are exemplified by practices from several countries in the region including Egypt. In 2018, civic space became even more closed in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, although civic space is closed or closing in most countries across the MENA region. In Iraq, there is more freedom but popular protests have been met with violence and demonstrators have been killed and journalist arrested as the authorities struggle to control the outbreaks. The four countries provide some useful examples of the types of repression occurring, as follows. Other countries are already closed and went through a period of heavy repression of civil society which started prior to 2017. 1. Bahrain Nowhere in the region is there a more comprehensive catalogue of closure of civic space than in Bahrain where all HRDs have been either jailed, exiled or banned from travel, the only independent newspaper Al-Wasat has been closed, political societies have been shut down, and protests have been violently suppressed leading to the death of five people in May 2017. The country’s leading HRDs Nabeel Rajab and Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja (GCHR’s Founding Directors) remain in jail. Rajab was one of the first people to be jailed for expressing concern about human rights violations on twitter, having been jailed in 2012 for tweets - leading to the spread of social media prosecutions across the region. 4 As Bahrain heads towards elections in November 2018 (postponed from October), the government seems determined to keep a tight lid on independent civil society, allowing no real dissent or opposition, having closed down opposition societies and jailed some of their leaders. While other countries may be equally as repressive, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, the rapid decline in Bahrain in the past two years is what sets it apart. Bahrain used to have functioning CSOs, HRDs and journalists free to work, and an independent media, but this is no longer the case. Since 2011 and the crushing of the popular movement, foreign CSOs, journalists and UN officials have not been able to visit the country freely. Inside Bahrain, HRDs and journalists along with the rights to freedoms of expression and assembly are suffering tremendously. Even though the United Nations (UN) hasn’t been able to visit Bahrain for five years, UN experts have taken notice. For the second time since 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has issued an Opinion regarding the legality of the detention of Rajab under international human rights law. In its second opinion, the WGAD held that the detention was not only arbitrary but also discriminatory. In a joint letter, 127 human rights groups welcomed this landmark opinion, made public on 13 August 2018, recognising the role played by HRDs in society and the need to protect them. Rajab, who is President of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Founding Director of GCHR, Deputy Secretary General of FIDH and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee was arrested on 13 June 2016 and has been detained since then on several freedom of expression-related charges. On 15 January 2018,