RIGHTS at RISK Time for Action Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 RIGHTS AT RISK: TIME FOR ACTION Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 Chapter 4: Anti-Rights Actors 4 www.oursplatform.org 72 RIGHTS AT RISK: TIME FOR ACTION Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 Chapter 4: Anti-Rights Actors Chapter 4: CitizenGo Anti-Rights Actors – Naureen Shameem AWID Mission and History ounded in August 2013 and headquartered Fin Spain,221 CitizenGo is an anti-rights platform active in multiple regions worldwide. It describes itself as a “community of active citizens who work together, using online petitions and action alerts as a resource, to defend and promote life, family and liberty.”222 It also claims that it works to ensure respect for “human dignity and individuals’ rights.”223 United Families Ordo Iuris, International Poland Center for World St. Basil the Istoki Great Family and Endowment Congress of Charitable Fund, Russia Foundation, Human Rights Families Russia (C-Fam) The International Youth Alliance Coalition Russian Defending Orthodox Freedom Church Anti-Rights (ADF) Human Life Actors Across International Heritage Foundation, USA FamilyPolicy, Russia the Globe Group of Friends of the and their vast web Family of connections Organization Family Watch of Islamic International Cooperation Anti-rights actors engage in tactical (OIC) alliance building across lines of nationality, religion, and issue, creating a transnational network of state and non-state actors undermining rights related to gender and sexuality. This El Yunque, Mexico visual represents only a small portion Vox party, The Vatican World Youth Spain of the global anti-rights lobby. Alliance Holy See oursplatform.org CitizenGo HazteOir, Spain www.oursplatform.org 73 RIGHTS AT RISK: TIME FOR ACTION Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 Chapter 4: Anti-Rights Actors According to CitizenGo, its core aim is to streets of Madrid – against a Spanish bill to foster citizen participation and it describes liberalize abortion laws.230 The group’s full name the internet and information technology as on its web site reads, “Make yourself heard, vital tools to achieve this goal.224 victims of the gender ideology.” This underlines the common stance of both organizations. The organization – avowedly “working from a 225 Christian perspective” – calls for respect for CITIZENGO IS INTIMATELY the right to life “from the moment of conception LINKED TO HAZTEOIR, A to its natural end”; the right to religious freedom; the right to marriage “understood as SPANISH ORGANIZATION the union between one man and one woman”; the right to educate one’s own children; and Notably, the Spanish Ministry of the Interior the right to work and to “economic initiative withdrew HazteOir’s declaration of public and the ownership of private property.”226 interest – its charity status first instituted in May 2013 – in February 2019231 after the Spanish CitizenGo is intimately linked to HazteOir, government ruled that the organization had a Spanish organization founded in 2001 by taken actions that had had the “effect of Ignacio Arsuaga, the President of CitizenGo. denigrating or undervaluing other conceptions They share a common founder, address, about the family, gender identity, childhood multiple board members, and tactics – with education” and that could be considered HazteOir more frequently working on the “attacks against certain people, groups national level, and CitizenGo transnationally. and entities.”232 Among other examples, the Arsuaga, a lawyer, was drawn into internet verdict referred to one of HazteOir’s many advocacy in the 1990s, including during his anti-rights campaigns – a bus touring Spain time at Fordham Law School in New York City. featuring a portrait of Adolf Hitler wearing a There he “became familiar with the American cap with a “feminist symbol” and the hashtag [US] grassroots movements and studied #StopFeminazis, alongside the slogan “repeal specifically their lobbying activities and the the gender laws.”233 tools they used for citizen involvement in politics and the public arena.”227 He was Budget, Board Members, and Size inspired by MoveOn.org to create HazteOir CitizenGo’s budget in 2018 and 2019 was 228 and CitizenGo. around $2.6 – 2.7 million USD. In both years, the largest portion of the organization’s budget HazteOir became particularly visible in 2010 was spent on campaigns. with the group’s well-publicized “Right to Life”229 campaign and mobilization – bringing hundreds of thousands of protestors to the www.oursplatform.org 74 RIGHTS AT RISK: TIME FOR ACTION Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 Chapter 4: Anti-Rights Actors Year Revenue (USD) Expenses (USD) and president), Blanca Escobar, Luca Volonte, 2018 $2,658,071.20234 $2,947,072.29235 Brian Brown, Gualberto Garcia, Alexey Komov, 248 2019 $2,709,525236 $2,649,216.68237 Alejandro Bermudez and Carlos Polo, while the CEO of the organization is Alvaro Zulueta.249 CitizenGo functions as a membership The majority are well-networked within anti- platform and claims to have over 9 million rights circles and organizations worldwide, as members.238 It is largely funded by online described below. donations from its members, estimated at tens of thousands of Euros per month.239 AMONG CITIZENGO AND HAZTEOIR’S Among CitizenGo and HazteOir’s donors DONORS ARE EXECUTIVES OF are executives of companies such as IBM, COMPANIES SUCH AS IBM, EULEN, 240 Eulen, and Nestle, alongside billionaire AND NESTLE Esther Koplowitz and the founder of El Corte Inglés, the biggest department store group in Europe, Isidoro Álvarez.241 While Thematic Focus CitizenGo frames its donation model as “small CitizenGo hosts campaigns on popular themes donations” from individual members, sources in the anti-rights universe, with a particular indicate the amount donated by Eulen was interest in abortion (employing a misleading 20,000 Euros, while those of Koplowitz and “right to life” discourse250); surrogacy; freedom Alvarez each amounted to 10,000 Euros.242 of religion;251 “the family”;252 education During an investigation by openDemocracy, (particularly comprehensive sex education,253 founder Ignacio Arsuaga reportedly told an homeschooling and “parents’ rights”254); and undercover reporter that Patrick Slim, son of anti-LGBTQI activities. the Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim, donated 40,000 Euros to CitizenGo.243 The same Abortion investigation reported that a senior Vox CitizenGo and HazteOir have a significant official compared CitizenGo to a “Super emphasis on undermining reproductive 244 PAC” for the party, Arsuaga also talked justice, with abortion as a central to the undercover reporter about how to get preoccupation. The platform has hosted 245 around campaign finance laws. online petitions and offline actions and campaigns to attack rights and access to HazteOir has approximately 40 employees and abortion in a number of countries – including 246 50 volunteers, while CitizenGo has multiple Spain, Italy, Malawi, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico country and regional liaisons and employees, – and in global multilateral spaces, such such as Ann Kioko, Campaigns Director as the UN’s Commission on the Status of 247 for CitizenGo Africa. CitizenGo’s board Women (CSW);255 the UN’s Commission on members include Ignacio Arsuaga (founder www.oursplatform.org 75 RIGHTS AT RISK: TIME FOR ACTION Observatory on the Universality of Rights Trends Report 2021 Chapter 4: Anti-Rights Actors Population and Development;256 and the Notably, CitizenGo and other ultra- Human Rights Committee.257 conservative actors attempt to appropriate and redefine religious freedom in a way that CITIZENGO AND HAZTEOIR HAVE directly and radically contradicts the purpose A SIGNIFICANT EMPHASIS ON of the right – they suggest that the right to freedom of religion is intended to protect a UNDERMINING REPRODUCTIVE religion rather than those persons who are JUSTICE, WITH ABORTION AS A free to hold or not hold different religious CENTRAL PREOCCUPATION beliefs. They then go on to suggest that religious liberty is threatened and undermined Surrogacy by outside forces and other human rights CitizenGo also works to erode reproductive (particularly those related to gender, sexuality rights and to push its monolithic and and reproduction). heteronormative conception of “the traditional family” by focusing on the practice of CITIZENGO ATTEMPT TO surrogacy, which it describes as “offensive APPROPRIATE AND REDEFINE to human dignity,” and “rob[bing] children of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN A WAY a natural family.”258 The platform’s petitions THAT RADICALLY CONTRADICTS similarly advocate against access to in vitro THE PURPOSE OF THE RIGHT fertilization (IVF) – or “test tube babies”259 – and access to contraceptives.260 CitizenGo has hosted petitions and actions on this In this way the anti-rights narrative around theme in several countries, including Kenya, freedom of religion aims to co-opt human Canada, and Cambodia.261 rights language, to shift the subject of rights, endowing already powerful institutions, Religious Freedom states, and ideologies with even more power. By flipping this discourse, anti-rights actors Employing another common anti-rights aim to shift the right to religious freedom from discourse, CitizenGo appeals to freedom a “shield against religious imposition” into a of religion and describes it as under threat. “sword of right-wing Christian hegemony.”263 As discussed in the previous OURs