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The U.S. has again been highlighted on a watchlist maintained by global alliance CIVICUS to draw attention to serious concerns regarding the exercise of civic liberties in various countries, with the organization pointing to “sustained attacks on civil freedoms” in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term.
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“The United States appears to be sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism. Peaceful protests are confronted with military force, critics are treated as criminals, journalists are targeted, and support for civil society and international cooperation have been cut back,” said Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary General of CIVICUS, in a press release accompanying the alliance’s July Monitor Watchlist Wednesday morning. “Six months into Donald Trump’s second term, a bizarre assault on fundamental freedoms and constitutional safeguards has become the new normal.”
CIVICUS, a network of civil society activists and groups that aims to strengthen citizen action around the world, added the U.S. to its watchlist in March, raising concerns about declining civil liberties after Trump’s return to office. The organization argues that there has been “escalated suppression” since then, including the deployment of the military against protestors and targeting of “journalists” covering demonstrations, moves to “defund and hobble nonprofits,” and “aggressive” targeting of immigrants who advocate for Palestine.
The latest watchlist also highlighted a “decline in civic space” in El Salvador, Indonesia, Kenya, Serbia, and Turkey—though the countries’ placements on CIVICUS’s civil liberties rating system vary. The system includes progressively severe ratings of open, narrowed, repressed, obstructed, and closed. A country rated as “open” is described by the organization as a state that “both enables and safeguards the enjoyment of civic space” and has low levels of fear, whereas a country considered “closed” has…
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