Posts Tagged ‘annual report 2026’

Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2025/26 gives a detailed and sobering view of the violations against HRDs

June 16, 2026

At least 358 defenders killed in 28 countries for their peaceful work in 2025

Courageous human rights defenders (HRDs) around the world often chart the course in the struggle against injustice but need the international community’s support to sustain their lifesaving work amid an increasingly hostile landscape, Front Line Defenders said as it launched its flagship report on 15 June 2026.

The Front Line Defenders Global Analysis 2025/26 gives a detailed panorama of the violations against HRDs at risk in countries around the world last year.

The report also reveals statistics gathered and verified by the HRD Memorial – which Front Line Defenders coordinates – documenting the killings of at least 358 HRDs in 28 countries in 2025. The countries with the highest number of killings documented were Colombia (165), Mexico (43), Palestine (43), Brazil (22) and Honduras (13). Defenders working on land, environmental and peasant communities rights (23.46%); HRDs working on Indigenous peoples’ rights (17.03%); and those documenting violations in conflict (9.78%) were the most commonly targeted. (See pp. 6-13 for complete data.)

“From drastic funding cuts and raging conflicts, to creeping repression even in countries that once supported them, 2025 saw some incredibly challenging times for human rights defenders around the world,” said Alan Glasgow, CEO of Front Line Defenders. “Defenders show tremendous resilience to uphold human rights – we owe them a debt of gratitude and support to keep their fight alive.”

Wide-ranging risks to HRDs

According to Front Line Defenders’ data, arbitrary arrest/detention continued to be one of the most commonly reported violations against HRDs around the world, in addition to threats/other harassment, surveillance, legal action and death threats (see pp. 14-21 for a more detailed breakdown, including by region and by gender).

Globally, the five most targeted areas of human rights defence were: LGBTIQ+ rights (9.5%); freedom of expression (9.4%); women’s rights (6.9%); human rights movements (6.1%) and freedom of assembly / protest movements (5.4 %). While they account for smaller proportions individually, land, environmental and Indigenous Peoples’ rights account for 8.7% of the total when considered collectively.

Regionally, the most commonly reported violations against HRDs were: arbitrary arrest or detention in the Middle East and North Africa (32.5%) and Asia-Pacific (16.1%); death threats in the Americas (24.2%); threats or other harassment in sub-Saharan Africa (15.3%); and legal action in Europe and Central Asia (14.9%). Front Line Defenders also documented a wide range of digital threats against HRDs, including online surveillance/censorship, social media online threats of violence or harassment, phone surveillance, interrogation and having their devices confiscated or destroyed.

The combination of the more repressive environment and reduction in funds was felt in practice: human rights defenders had to stop their work and shutter their organisations.

Voices of determination

The report includes numerous voices of HRDs speaking directly about the challenges they face.

Among them are contributions from HRDs in Guatemala, DRC, Malaysia, Tunisia, Ecuador, Eswatini/Swaziland, Occupied Western Sahara, and Egyptian HRDs facing transnational repression while in exile in Europe.

Lutfiye Zudiyeva, a prominent Crimean Tatar woman human rights defender and journalist who has been criminalised for her work, penned a foreword to the report in which she said: “For this movement to be sustainable and to effect long-term systemic change, we need consistent support from the international community, from governments, and from citizens. HRDs should be supported, and be able to live and work without fear, knowing that they are not alone.”

View an interactive online version of the Global Analysis

Download the full Global Analysis as a PDF

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/statement-report/human-rights-defenders-need-support-sustain-fearless-work-increasingly-hostile

Environmental Defenders Remain Among World’s Most Targeted Activists

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Freedom House report: Freedom in the World 2026: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy

March 21, 2026

Military coups, violence against peaceful protesters, and efforts to weaken constitutional safeguards in 2025 drove the 20th consecutive year of decline in global freedom, according to a new report released on 19 March by Freedom House. The report, Freedom in the World 2026: The Growing Shadow of Autocracy, found that 54 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties, while only 35 registered improvements. Today just 21 percent of the world’s people live in countries rated Free, down from 46 percent two decades ago.

“Even as 2026 has brought new opportunities for those living under authoritarian rule from Venezuela to Iran, the last 20 years have been a dark period for global freedom,” said Jamie Fly, chief executive officer of Freedom House. “Armed conflict, coups, attacks on democratic institutions, and crackdowns on rights by authoritarians have now resulted in two full decades of decline. Those who still enjoy the blessings of freedom must do more to counter authoritarianism and provide more effective support for the democratic aspirations of people standing up to repression around the world, or this persistent decline will continue.”

In addition to deepening repression among authoritarian regimes, the past year featured a chequered performance among the world’s democracies. Of the 88 countries rated Free, the United States experienced the sharpest decline, with a drop of 3 points to a score of 81 on the report’s 100-point scale; it was matched in this group only by a decline in Bulgaria (−3), closely followed by Italy (−2). Worsening gridlock in Congress and escalating assertions of unilateral executive authority—combined with a multiyear rise in threats and reprisals for nonviolent speech, and a weakening of anti-corruption safeguards—brought the US score to its lowest level since Freedom in the World began publishing 0–100 scores in 2002. The United States’ decline for 2025 contributed to a 12-point erosion over the past two decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Key report findings:

  • Global freedom declined for the 20th consecutive year in 2025. A total of 54 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties during the year, while only 35 countries registered improvements.
  • Largest increases and best overall scores: On Freedom in the World’s 100-point scale for political rights and civil liberties, Syria (+5), Sri Lanka (+5), Bolivia (+4), and Gabon (+4) recorded the largest gains for 2025. The best overall country scores were those of Finland (100), Sweden (99), Norway (99), and New Zealand (99).
  • Largest declines and worst overall scores: Guinea-Bissau (−8), Tanzania (−7), Burkina Faso, (−5), Madagascar (−5), and El Salvador (−5) had the largest one-year score declines.The countries with the worst overall scores were South Sudan (0), Sudan (1), and Turkmenistan (1).
     
  • Status changes: Three countries—Bolivia, Fiji, and Malawi—improved from Partly Free to Free status thanks to competitive elections, growing judicial independence, and the strengthening of the rule of law.
  • Deepening and persistent authoritarian repression: Conditions for freedom continued to deteriorate in Iran in 2025, with authorities arresting more than 21,000 people as part of a crackdown on alleged espionage and collaboration following the regime’s 12-day war with Israel in June, and expelling some 1.8 million Afghan migrants and refugees without regard for their basic rights. The country’s score fell by 1 point to 10 out of 100. The scores for Russia and China remained unchanged at 12 and 9, respectively, but Russian authorities took further steps to suppress antiwar speech and independent journalism, while Chinese officials cracked down on small but multiplying protests.
  • Although the scores for many rights and liberties deteriorated over the last two decades, media freedom, freedom of personal expression, and due process have suffered the heaviest impacts. Coups, armed conflicts, attacks on democratic institutions by elected leaders, and intensified repression by authoritarian regimes have been the main drivers of global decline during this 20-year period.
  • Since 2005, the group of countries with Partly Free status has shrunk substantially. Of the 59 countries that were rated Partly Free as of 2005, a total of 19 have dropped to Not Free, swelling the ranks of the world’s autocracies, whereas just 9 have improved to Free.
  • Most democracies remain resilient in the face of daunting challenges. Despite internal pressures and threats from foreign powers, democracies continue to demonstrate that their domestic political systems are responsive and capable of course correction. Of the 87 countries rated Free in 2005, a total of 76—more than 85 percent—have remained Free throughout the two-decade period of global decline.

https://freedomhouse.org/article/new-report-global-freedom-declined-20th-consecutive-year-2025

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HRW’s annual report: Global system of human rights in ‘peril’ – Will Human Rights Survive a Trumpian World?

February 5, 2026

Philippe Bolopion, Executive Director of HRW, starts the annual report of 2026 with the following words: “The global human rights system is in peril. Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders have come to rely on to advance norms and protect freedoms. To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.“

…In this context, 2025 may be seen as a tipping point. In just 12 months, the Trump administration has carried out a broad assault on key pillars of US democracy and the global rules-based order, which the US, despite inconsistencies, was, with other states, instrumental in helping to establish.

In short order, Trump’s second-term administration has undermined trust in the sanctity of elections, reduced government accountability, gutted food assistance and healthcare subsidies, attacked judicial independence, defied court orders, rolled back women’s rights, obstructed access to abortion care, undermined remedies for racial harm, terminated programs mandating accessibility for people with disabilities, punished free speech, stripped protections from trans and intersex people, eroded privacy, and used government power to intimidate political opponents, the media, law firms, universities, civil society, and even comedians.

Claiming a risk of “civilizational erasure” in Europe and leaning on racist tropes to cast entire populations as unwelcome in the US, the Trump administration has embraced policies and rhetoric that align with white nationalist ideology. Immigrants and asylum seekers have been subjected to inhumane conditions and degrading treatment; 32 died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2025, and as of mid-January 2026, an additional 4 have died.

The US president of course has the authority to tighten US borders and enforce stricter immigration policies. The administration is not, however, entitled to deny legal process to asylum seekers, mistreat undocumented migrants, or unlawfully discriminate. In a well-functioning democracy, no electoral mandate should supersede domestic legislation, constitutional protections, or international human rights law. Trump’s team has repeatedly bypassed these guardrails.

The violations have not stopped at the border. The Trump administration used a 1798 law to send hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to an infamous prison in El Salvador, where they were tortured and sexually abused. Its blatantly unlawful strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific extrajudicially killed more than 120 people whom Trump claims were drug traffickers…

A summary can be found in Al-Jazeera of 4 February 2026

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/4/global-system-of-human-rights-in-peril-warns-hrw-in-its-annual-report

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