On May 30, 2017, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi signed 87 highly punitive articles comprising the NGO Law. The law further restricts the operations of Egypt’s 47,000 civil society organizations (CSOs), which are now required to receive permission from the government to conduct all of their activities. The law impedes civil society’s right to access…
On June 4, 2017, Burmese authorities arrested U Tun Tun Oo, leader of the Human Rights Activists Association, citing Burma’s notorious Telecommunications Law. He was arrested for livestreaming the play “We Want No War,” which is critical of the army’s historical persecution of ethnic groups. Two days before his arrest, Burmese authorities detained two journalists…
Responding to the World Movement for Democracy’s 2015 Call for Democratic Renewal, the formation of a dynamic coalition of democratic leaders was announced in a statement entitled the “Prague Appeal for Democratic Renewal.” The statement comes ahead of the annual Forum 2000 Conference scheduled for October 8-10, 2017, which members of the coalition and other…
On June 6, 2017, the office of the UNSR for freedom peaceful assembly and association launched FOAA Online – an online portal of user-friendly legal arguments for civil society activists who are fighting to defend those rights. The legal strategies have been aggregated from existing international human rights law, international treaty bodies, and regional courts…