CIVICUS Voices

Summary 

In this episode, we give tips to stay safe while protesting. What are some safety recommendations for before, during and after a march or protest? Can you lose your job or get expelled from your university for attending a protest? What happens when you protest in a country that restrict civic freedoms? 

Guests: 

Michael Wrase, a professor of public law and a constitutional law expert at the Berlin Social Science Center.

Omhle Ntshingila, Project Coordinator at Right2Protest movement in South Africa.

Recommendations: 

Know Your Rights: Protest guidebook & phonebook by CIVICUS. This guide covers important issues such as legal policing practices, accountability mechanisms for violations, as well as practical information on equipment and location considerations for peaceful assemblies. This guide is available in four languages: English, Spanish, French, Arabic. You can use the guide as an activist, at your organization, so spread the word!

If you need someone to reach out to in case you need support, there’s the Vuka Protest Support Phonebook, you can find various types of support from nearly 30 international and regional civil society organizations that can protect and elevate the impact of your protests. 

Guide on ‘Organizing a protest’ by Right2Protest and Action Takers

Protests work because they disrupt the status quo and force those in power to confront uncomfortable truths. They are a direct challenge to injustice, showing that people will not be silenced or ignored. When people take to the streets, they send a clear message: change is not just desired, it's demanded. To kick off the fourth season of CIVICUS Voices, we will be sharing successful examples of how protests have been impacting society positively around the globe. 

Where protests have made a difference? From abortion rights in Latin America to Black Lives Matter in the US to the Tunisian Revolution, there are many success stories as a result of protest movements. 

Guests: 

Mariela Belski, Executive Director for Amnesty International Argentina and UN advisor in Argentina.

Layla Saleh, Researcher Director at Demos-Tunisia Democratic Sustainability Forum. 

Recommendations:  

Strategies for a sustainable protest by CIVICUS 

The last thing students and their parents should be worrying about is whether children will be safe while attending school, and yet school shootings and attacks are a real threat around the world.

Bruno Langeani, a project manager at the Instituto Sou da Paz, helps us understand the trends and nuances of school violence in Brazil, and what can really make a change. 

Vuk Cvetković us a Serbian high school student who works with the “I mi se pitamo” initiative and shares his views on how rare school shootings have mobilised tens of thousands to protest more broadly in that country. 

Safe and accessible drinking water is a crucial right that sadly continues to be threatened in different ways for communities around the work. So, it’s no surprise that access to water is frequently a protest demand, from Ethiopia to the United States. 

We speak to Alana Potter the global coordinator of EndWaterPoverty at WaterAid to give us an international perspective.

Faeza Meyer, a community organiser at the African Water Commons Collective, shares her experiences from Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’ to now.

Later we catch up on the developments around persecuted Guapinol water defenders in Honduras from lawyer Edy Tábora, who is the director of the law firm Justicia para los Pueblos (Justice for the Peoples). 

Russia’s war against Ukraine has taken centre stage in headlines and discussions over the last year, yet a variety of conflicts continue internationally, from Ethiopia to Palestine. 

Since this season of CIVICUS Voices looks particularly at protests, this episode looks at how to mobilise and campaign in the middle of conflict and war. 

We speak to Polina Kurakina from OVD-Info, an organisation tracking the rights to freedom of assembly and expression in Russia.

Oleksandra Matviichuk is a highly experienced Ukrainian human rights lawyer who leads the Centre for Civil Liberties.

Lastly, we hear what it is like to protest and mobilise in ongoing conflict from Nisreen Elsaim, who is a Sudanese youth climate activist.

The global cost-of-living crisis has been met with a crackdown on the rights of working people in every region of the world, and this year has seen the violations of workers rights reach record highs.

We continue this season by looking at workers' rights protests and mobilisations from across the world that have brought about real change, with a special focus on migrants, who are among the most vulnerable of all workers.

In this episode, we speak to Lennon Ying Dah Wong, an activist fighting for the rights of migrant workers in Taiwan, where exploitative conditions are rampant.

We also talk to Eva Maria Jimenez Lamas from the Belgian trade union Confédération des Syndicats chrétiens (CSC). Eva assisted a group of undocumented domestic workers in making history when they lead their first ever strike in Brussels, Belgium. 

Significant strides have been made across the globe in recognising and upholding the rights of sexual minorities, but despite these successes, the past year has also seen major setbacks when it comes to LGBTQI+ rights. This episode talks to human rights defenders from across the African continent, where anti-rights sentiments and regressive legislation is gaining ground.

We talk to Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Frank Mugisha, who is an openly gay activist in a country that recently passed what is widely considered the harshest anti-homosexuality laws in the world.

Also from Uganda, human rights lawyer Rose Wakikona explains the impact of these laws and their far-reaching implications for the rest of the region.

Finally, we’ll hear from Henry Wackam, who was forced to flee Cameroon because of his sexual orientation. Henry is the founder of Rainbow Refuge Africa, a network for LGBTQI+ refugees and asylum seekers living in South Africa, where he now lives.  

Freedom of peaceful assembly is a fundamental right exercised around the world, especially where we see democracies backsliding, governments failing to listen to the people, and amid growing anti-rights backlash.

To kick of this season we look at what has been happening in the last year. Marianna Belalba Barreto leads the Civic Space Research team at CIVICUS and tracks civic space globally. 

Then we hear what it has been like to organise protests, with Ruki Fernando from Sri Lanka, where the economy crashed and a state of emergency was declared. 

At the beginning of 2022, there were more than 27 million refugees worldwide, and their right to protest is often limited or repressed. 

Nadia Hardman, a researcher in the Refugee and Migrants Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, speaks to us about these challenges. 

Later, Abdul Aziz Muhamat shares his story as a Sudanese refugee who became an advocate for refugee rights while under long-term detention at the Australian government detention centre on Manus Island.

You can find CIVICUS online and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. CIVICUS Voices is hosted by  Aarti Narsee and produced by Amal Atrakouti, Elna Schutz, Jamaine Krige, and the CIVICUS team.

Photos, source material and transcript are available here: https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-center/resources/podcastcivicusvoices/#episode6

When there has been a coup d’état in a country, the protests surrounding this regime-change are often critical but difficult. 

In this episode, we look at how this works, through the example of Myanmar, where the military junta took over control from the democratically elected ruling party in 2021. Thinzar Shunlei Yi, the advocacy coordinator at the Action Committee for Democracy Development speaks about the role of protests in the country, before Wai Hnin Pwint Thon from the Burma Campaign UK shares how she has been supporting the cause from abroad. You can find CIVICUS online and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  CIVICUS Voices is hosted by  Aarti Narsee and produced by Amal Atrakouti, Elna Schutz, Jamaine Krige, and the CIVICUS team.

Photos, source material and transcript are available here: https://www.civicus.org/index.php/media-center/resources/podcastcivicusvoices/#episode5