How Covid-19 has impacted on civic space

CIVICUS Voices

During the Covid-19 pandemic, civil society organisations took action as frontline responders, and as defenders of democracy, civic space and human rights. They often faced greater restrictions, sometimes under the guise of pandemic emergency response. In this episode, we hear from activists and researchers about what this all means.
Debora Leao is a civic space researcher with the CIVICUS Monitor, an online research tool tracking civic freedoms. She describes some of the trends they have seen throughout the pandemic, including greater detention of activists and stricter government to protesters.
We hear from a voice on the ground in Fiji with feminist and human rights defender, Roshika Deo, as she gives us a glimpse into her daily work while the country is under harsh lockdown restrictions.
Later, Slovenian youth activist and the president of trade union Mladiplus, Tea Jarc, describes how they have used creative methods of political expression despite government pushback, including playing badminton in front of parliament.
We close the show by telling you how you can get practically involved through the CIVICUS #StandAsMyWitness campaign, which has successfully called for the release of 9 activists and Human Rights Defenders so far.
CIVICUS Voices is a podcast produced by CIVICUS and hosted by Aarti Narsee and Mawethu Nkosana. Our producer is Elna Schütz, and today’s content producers were Amal Atrakouti and Deborah Walter.

Find out more on www.civicus.org or on social media under @CIVICUSAlliance.
Music in this podcast is One Night In Africa by John Bartmann under CC0 1.

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