How The World is Losing It's Freedom

I am a Nigerian. And in Nigeria, we are all too familiar with the abuse of our civic space/civic freedom.

It is one of the most generally discomforting and limiting feelings ever; not been able to openly fight against something that is so wrong the whole world can see it.

In 2020, October 20th, history was made by the blood of innocent Nigerians who had become activists fighting to get back their fundamental human rights through protest.

And this issue is on ground all over the world.

In Afghanistan so many women and girls are being limited from reaching their full potential, from living free and going as far as they want to in their education.

In Iran, activists fighting for women's rights are being imprisoned and executed.

Some of them only dared to talk about it online. Girls are being imprisoned for dancing; being killed for leaving their hair unveiled.

More than three people were murdered each week in 2018, with countless more criminalized, for defending their land and our environment.

If you're thinking, "Oh that's just the law in their country," then it will be right to let you know that fundamental human rights are not limited to certain types of governments. They are called human rights for a reason, not democratic rights.

Civic spaces are physical or digital areas where people/activists (not government or organisation's) come together to exercise their human rights and civic freedoms of the ability to form associations, protest peacefully, and express views and opinions.

Some human rights include freedom of movement, rights to work in just and favorable conditions, rights to the highest attainable standards of physical and mental well-being, rights to education, equality before the law, rights to a fair trial and presumption of innocence, freedom of thought conscience and religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, protection of minority rights, etc.

These rights were put together by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from regions all over the world. These rights are unquestionable wherever you find yourself.

Currently, our civic freedom to exercise these rights are being threatened all over the world in little ways and huge ways.

Issues ranging from digital and physical attacks on human rights defenders and their organisations, women and gender identities; imprisonment, harassment and killings of activist; violent disruption of protest; violence against protesters; online censorships; etc.

These issues if not curbed will blow up into a world of humans denied of their fundamental rights.

The idea of silencing activists from advocating for fundamental human rights is to make sure others who want to speak up are silenced due to fear of being attacked as well.

However, allowing the attackers of civic space to silence the rest of us is allowing them to win. We must keep going, we must keep advocating for our freedom.

We can start by taking about the civic freedom abuse in our communities.