Liberal Democracies under Pressure

Over the past couple of years, a multitude of laws that serve to narrow down civil society organizations’ room to maneuver have been enacted across different parts of the world – including in some European countries and Israel.

Such restrictions vary in their degree of severity from burdensome reporting requirements, to restrictions on foreign funding, and all the way to outlawing organizations and the arrests of social activists. Such legal tools can and are increasingly copied from one country to the next in order to suppress existing forms of social organizations that seek to promote civil and human rights.

Our upcoming panel discussion intends to examine the trend of governments’ attempts to shrink the space for social activism around the world and reflect on potential strategies to respond to the increasingly dynamic policy changes in the civil society space.

Participants:

Dr. Ellen Ueberschär
President, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Germany

Marc Schulman
Newsweek Magazine

MK Tamar Zandberg
Meretz Party

Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer
Israel Democracy Institute