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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Malek Adly v. Egypt: Human Rights Lawyer Brutally Detained
After being charged with manufactured crimes by the Egyptian State, Malek Adly spent 116 days in solitary confinement.
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Mahmoud Hussein v. Egypt: Egyptian Protester Jailed, Tortured
A protest shirt is all it took for Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein to be arbitrarily detained for more than two years.
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Another Unhappy Anniversary for Mahmoud Hussein
Tags Share Two years ago today, Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein put on a t-shirt that read a “nation without torture” and went to a peaceful protest. The government’s response to these simple acts changed his life and have become a glaring example of the deteriorating human rights situation in Egypt. On January 25, 2014, Mahmoud
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House Passes North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act
Tags Share (January 13, 2016 | Washington, D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights praised the House of Representatives for passing the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2016 with overwhelming bipartisan support, 418 – 2. Among other provisions, the bill will further limit North Korea’s access to the international financial system, target individuals involved in
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Mexico Must Advance Investigation Into 43 Disappeared Ayotzinapa Students
Tags Share On the night of September 26, 2014, students in Mexico’s southern state of Guerrero were violently attacked by local police; 43 students were detained and disappeared. The case of the forcibly disappeared students of Ayotzinapa is a painful example of the human rights crisis facing Mexico and has prompted international and country-wide indignation.
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Statement by RFK Human Rights on Paris Terror Attacks
Tags Share (New York, NY | November 14, 2015) In response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, Robert F, Kennedy Human Rights’ President Kerry Kennedy and European Director Frank La Rue issued the following statements: “This horrible series of terrorist attacks against the people of Paris yesterday, with the false justification of religious fundamentalism, should
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RFK Human Rights Submits Case to UN Working Group
Tags Share Read the full U.N. Working Group petition here. (November 13, 2015 | Washington, D.C.) Today Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights submitted an urgent action and petition to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) on behalf of Egyptian teenager Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed Hussein. The case was submitted in conjunction with the
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Detention of Egyptian Human Rights Defender Hossam Bahgat
Tags Share (November 10, 2015 | Washington, D.C.) Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights expresses alarm at the temporary detention and attempted intimidation of Egyptian human rights defender and investigative journalist Hossam Bahgat. Hossam Bahgat, founder of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR)—one of the country’s preeminent civil society organizations—was ordered detained by the military
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Arrests in Zimbabwe Part of Broader Crackdown on Human Rights
Tags Share The media profession in Zimbabwe is once again under siege. During the past week, four newspaper journalists have been arrested, and three of them charged with slander, in a country already notorious for systematic violations of human rights. On the surface, this latest crackdown might be expected, or at the least, not altogether
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Case of Murdered Colombian Journalist to be Heard by Inter-American Court
Tags Share MIAMI, Florida (November 2, 2015)—Calling it a “step of great importance,” the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights welcomed the decision of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to submit the case of Nelson Carvajal to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and expressed their confidence that
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Enough is Enough in Horribly Repressive Eritrea
Tags Share This week, Swedish-Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak spent his fourteenth consecutive birthday in prison. Isaak was arrested back in 2001, along with twenty others, for signing an open letter critical of the government in Asmara. These individuals were labeled as “spies” and enemies of the state simply for demanding democratic reforms in their country.
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Angola’s Escalating Repression Should Prompt American Action
Tags Share After almost four decades in power, Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, aged 73, continues to smash dissent with the keenly energetic fists of a much younger man. Indeed, Angola’s political climate has only become more toxic and paranoid over the course of 2015. We have witnessed the legal persecution of a journalist
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