"People Power Under Attack 2024", December 2024

...Civic space ratings have changed for 18 countries since our last report in December 2023. Conditions for civil society have deteriorated in nine countries – Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Mongolia, the Netherlands, the Occupied Palestine Territories (OPT) and Peru – while conditions improved in nine countries – Bangladesh, Botswana, Fiji, Japan, Jamaica, Liberia, Poland, Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago.

Only 40 out of 198 countries and territories have an open civic space rating, indicating widespread respect for civic freedoms. In comparison, 81 countries and territories are rated in the worst two categories of having repressed and closed civic space, indicating widespread and routine repression of fundamental freedoms. Some 72.4 percent of the global population lives under these repressive conditions.

Almost 30 percent lives in countries where civic space is completely closed. Compared with last year, an additional 1.5 percentage points of the global population now lives in a repressed or closed country. However, despite the overall negative trends, four countries – Japan, Jamaica, Slovenia and Trinidad and Tobago – have moved into the highest category of having open civic space.

Of all civic space violations recorded by the CIVICUS Monitor over the past year, 45 percent, over 1,100 violations, were related to freedom of expression. Violations of freedoms of peaceful assembly made up 29 percent of the total, and freedom of association violations constituted 26 percent...

In 2024, protests to show solidarity with people in the OPT and climate change and environmental protests were particularly targeted, including through bans, disruption of protests and arrests of protesters, among other tactics to discourage people from gathering to have their voices heard.

In 2024, detention of protesters was a common tactic used to disperse or prevent protests, documented in at least 76 countries...

...The global top violation of freedom of expression was attacks on journalists, documented in at least 49 countries. Attacks on journalists came from both state and non-state sources...

Detention of HRDs was the third most common civic space violation globally, documented in at least 58 countries. Authorities use detention as a tactic to discourage HRDs from continuing their work. HRDs working on environmental, land and Indigenous rights, labour rights, women’s rights and anticorruption were particularly targeted. Climate and environmental activists continued to be subject to government harassment around the world, including by arbitrary detention...

...Almost 10 percent of all civic space violations recorded this year by the CIVICUS Monitor related to Israel and the OPT and the expression of solidarity with Palestinian people...

Legitimate criticism of Israeli authorities is often conflated with antisemitism or an endorsement of terrorism...Activists, academics, artists and other concerned citizens face attempts to silence them when they speak out or show solidarity with Palestinians...