Statement at the 58th Session of the UN Human Rights Council
Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
Delivered by Sigrid Lipott, CIVICUS
Thank you, Mr President.
CIVICUS welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights focussed on the protection of human rights by regional organisations.
The proliferation of restrictive laws, regulations and practices - as part of a broader legal targeting of civil society organisations (CSOs) - is severely limiting civil society actors’ access to funding in many countries. This includes a trend of overregulation of the civil society sector under the guise of national security and counter-terrorism rationales.
Security and counter-terrorism laws continue to be massively misused by repressive state apparatuses to silence human rights defenders (HRDs) uncovering grave human rights violations or seeking transformative justice. Over the past year, dozens of HRDs including young HRDs have been criminalised under anti-terrorism, criminal defamation, national security and public order laws and unlawfully detained on terrorism-related charges in the absence of due process guarantees.
In the face of multiple intersecting crises, we are particularly concerned about the increase in restrictive laws and policies that criminalise civil society and the introduction of new terrorist financing laws to target humanitarian workers and activists. In all regions, restrictive laws including terrorism prevention laws that could disproportionately harm freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association have been proposed or enacted, whilst the concerning trend of ‘foreign agents’ legislation has also continued to sweep across several European and Central Asian countries.
We urge States and regional organisations to integrate stronger civil society space and human rights due diligence safeguards into national and regional security and counter-terrorism programming. Furthermore, we encourage the Special Rapporteur to explore the impact of ongoing aid freezes affecting CSOs on the effectiveness of Member States’ counter-terrorism efforts, and the possible role of regional organisations in establishing crisis intervention funds for independent CSOs engaged in human rights, counter-terrorism and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) related work.
We thank you.
