Civic Space and Activists
We collaborate with local, regional, and international partners to hold governments accountable, create lasting legal change, and foster an environment allowing individual and collective actors to speak out, participate in public affairs, organize, protest, and otherwise freely exercise and enjoy their human rights. Through strategic litigation and targeted advocacy, we foster collaboration and dialogue between civil society and key actors and promote cross-pollination of the most protective legal standards and innovative approaches to legal issues. Our partnership model builds on the work of local organizations on the ground by jointly strategizing and litigating cases, supporting their litigation through filing Amicus briefs, and working together to assess, advise, and build their technical capacity. From litigating landmark cases, such as the first case on lethal violence against journalists before the Inter-American Court on Human Rights or a case on the protection for peaceful assembly before the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, to developing an innovative tool that maps key ongoing judicial cases worldwide, we are committed to protecting and defending civic space and democracy around the world.
114
Countries with serious civic space restrictions
88%
Rate of impunity for crimes of violence against journalists
44 of 180
U.S. ranking in World Press Freedom Index
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Organizations Call on Dominican Government to Investigate Attack on Human Rights Defender
Tags Share (Washington DC | September 28th, 2016) Last Sunday September 25, at 7:30 in the evening, Genaro Rincon, a lawyer and activist with the organizations Movimiento Socio-Cultural Para Los Trabajadores Haitianos (MOSCTHA) and Derechos Vigentes was attacked, beaten, and threatened with death on a public bus in Santo Domingo by two individuals after identifying…
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RFK Human Rights Submits Report to UN
Tags Share Read the full report in English Read the full report in French (September 28, 2016 | Washington, D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, in partnership with several other non-governmental organizations and academics, has submitted an alternative report to United Nations Human Rights Committee (HRC) to consider regarding Western Sahara as it reviews the…
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Protecting Due Process Rights of Guatemalan Prosecutor Orlando López
Tags Share HAGA CLICK AQUI PARA ESPAÑOL (September 28, 2016 | Guatemala City, San Jose and Washington D.C.) Orlando Salvador López, who was recently removed from his office as Chief Prosecutor of the Human Rights unit of the Public Ministry of Guatemala, was detained at his home this past Thursday, September 22nd. Mr. López is…
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Bangladesh: Vague Provisions in Digital Security Act Ripe for Abuse
Tags Share (September 8, 2016 | Washington D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights calls Bangladesh’s legislature to reject elements of The Digital Security Act of 2016, a draft cyber-security law that contains a number of vague and problematic provisions that can be used to restrict freedom of expression and legitimate human rights work. The law…
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Venezuela Must Ensure Safety of All Peaceful Protesters
Tags Share (August 31, 2016 | Washington DC) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights urges the Venezuelan government to ensure the protection and safety of the people participating in a peaceful protest to be held September 1st in Caracas, including the safety of journalists who will cover this public demonstration. Likewise, it expresses its concern over…
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Morocco’s Noncompliance With MINURSO
Tags Share Last week marked 90 days since the UN Security Council demanded that the UN Mission for the Referendum in the Western Sahara (MINURSO) return to full functionality. As the deadline came and went, Japanese UN Ambassador Koro Bessho, Security Council president for July, lamented that “there was agreement by the (U.N.) secretariat as…
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Egypt’s Egregious Prison Conditions
Tags Share Prominent Egyptian human rights lawyer Malek Adly, head of the legal unit for the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, has been held by Egyptian authorities in solitary confinement for 80 days. He is detained in a two by three square-meter cell and is not allowed recreation or exercise time. He is…
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Malek Adly Petition to UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
Tags Share Malek Mostafa Adly Elgendy is a prominent human rights lawyer who has represented countless peaceful protesters and civil society organizations in Egypt. He was arbitrarily arrested in May 2016 as part of a wider crackdown by Egyptian authorities on all forms of critique and peaceful dissent. Since his arrest, Adly has been severely…
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RFK Human Rights Condemns Arbitrary Detention of Activists in Venezuela
The continued arbitrary detention of Francisco Marquez and Gabriel San Miguel, two young opposition activists, illustrates how far the government of Venezuela is willing to go to crack down on dissent.
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RFK Human Rights Co-Sponsors Briefing on Civil Society Crackdown in Egypt
Tags Share On June 22, 2016, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP) co-hosted a briefing titled, “Egypt’s Renewed Crackdown: The Struggle for Human Rights and Civil Society,” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The discussion featured TIMEP Executive Director Dr. Nancy Okail, Visiting Scholar at Stanford University…
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Bangladesh Abandons Baseless Investigation Into Odhikar
Tags Share (June 22, 2016 | Washington, D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights welcomes the decision by the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to abandon its groundless investigation into Odhikar, one of the most prominent, independent human rights organizations in Bangladesh. Last month, the ACC made completely untrue allegations against Odhikar and opened an investigation into…
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Political Space Continues to Shrink a Year After Elections in Ethiopia
Tags Share In the lead up to the 2015 parliamentary elections in the Federal Democratic of Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government used violence, intimidation, and repressive legislation, to brutally restrict democratic and political space. Such actions allowed the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to claim all of the 547 in Parliament, despite international concerns…
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