The CIVICUS Monitor Platform has just released an updated set of statistics resulted from all the updates undertaken between July and September 2017.
The methodology is based on a series of standard calculations and verification checks, which produces a guiding score for each country. This national guiding score is used to assign ratings on the state of civic space, which is defined as the respect in law and practice for the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression. As in the previous update, the level of openness of civic space is correlated further with better human development, inequality and electoral democracy scores.
The updated ratings provide further evidence that the space for civil society – civic space – continues to shrink all around the world. Accordingly, as the new ratings indicate, civic space ratings worsened in 8 countries, improved in 2 and remained unchanged in another 185.
Collectively, 108 countries are now in the CIVICUS Monitor’s ‘obstructed’, ‘repressed’ and ‘closed’ categories – an increase of two from April 2017, when the set of civic space ratings for all countries was first published. At the other end of the scale, just 23 countries now occupy the ‘open’ category, down from 26 in April. As data show, only 2% of the world’s population live now in countries with ‘open’ civic space.
In addition to ratings, the CIVICUS Monitor provides detailed descriptions of how civic space is changing and how it is being restricted all around the world, observing thus a consistent pattern of civic space violations. In most of the cases, states (and non-state actors in some cases) violate civic space by detaining activists, protesters and journalists; physically attacking, threatening or harassing journalists; and using excessive force against protesters.
The new findings analyse the most common types of violations reported, the reasons behind human detention and the use of excessive force, as well the motivation for violent attacks.
Apart from all of these, the CIVICUS Monitor has also began tracking the continued resilience and mobilisation of civil society groups all around the world, documenting more than 40 reports of positive civic space developments since the end of September this year.
We invite you to read more information at the following link: https://monitor.civicus.org/Ratingsupdatesept17/.
