US placed on rights watchlist over health of its civil society under Trump

A group of global civil society organizations have placed the US on a watchlist for urgent concern over the health of its civic society, alongside Turkey, Serbia, El Salvador, Indonesia and Kenya.

On Wednesday, a new report released by the non-profit Civicus placed the US on its watchlist following “sustained attacks on civic freedoms” across the country, according to the group.

Civicus pointed to three major issues including the deployment of military to quell protests, growing restrictions placed on journalists and civil society, as well as the aggressive targeting of anti-war advocates surrounding Palestine.

At Civicus, countries are assigned a rating over their civic space conditions. The ratings include “open”, “narrowed”, “obstructed”, “repressed” and “closed”. The group has declared the US’s civic space as “narrowed”.

According to the group, the “narrowed” rating is for countries that still allow for individuals and civil society organizations to exercise their rights to freedom of association, peaceful assembly and expression but where violations of these rights still take place.

“People can form associations to pursue a wide range of interests, but full enjoyment of this right is impeded by occasional harassment, arrest or assault of people deemed critical of those in power,” the rating description says, adding: “Protests are conducted peacefully, although authorities sometimes deny permission, citing security concerns, and excessive force, which may include tear gas and rubber bullets, are sometimes used against peaceful demonstrators.”

With regard to the media, countries with a “narrowed” rating allow for media to “disseminate a wide range of information, although the state undermines complete press freedom either through strict regulation or by exerting political pressure on media owners”.

“The United States appears to be sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism. Peaceful protests are confronted with military force, critics are treated as criminals, journalists are targeted, and support for civil society and international cooperation have been cut back,” Mandeep Tiwana, Civicus’s secretary general, said in a statement.

“Six months into Donald Trump’s second term, a bizarre assault on fundamental freedoms and constitutional safeguards has become the new normal,” he added.

Pointing to Trump’s deployment of marines and national guard troops to California in June in response to the widespread protests against immigration raids, Tiwana said: “This level of militarisation sets a dangerous precedent. It’s a line that democratically elected leaders aren’t meant to cross.”

Tiwana also pointed to the Trump administration’s latest attacks against media networks, including funding restrictions on public broadcast stations including PBS and NPR.

“What they’re trying to do is actually defund critical news sources and deny American people the ability to receive truthful non-partisan reporting by pulling their funding,” Tiwana told the Guardian.

In its report, Civicus also warned of the growing criminalisation of peaceful advocacy, adding that “authorities have continued reprisals against activists expressing solidarity with Palestinian rights.”

Citing the Trump administration’s clampdown on foreign-born student activists including Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk, as well as the sanctioning of Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, Tiwana said: “We are seeing a wide-ranging attack on civic space in the US by the federal and some state governments. Authorities in the US should reverse course from the present undemocratic path by guaranteeing everyone’s first amendment right to organise and dissent legitimately.”