A report from a global alliance of civic societies has classified Ethiopia as one of the nine countries that have seen a significant deterioration of their civic space dynamics over the past year.
The CIVICUS 2025 report, published this week, lists Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Georgia, Kenya, Mongolia, the Netherlands, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Peru as countries where civil society organizations face mounting pressure and limited freedoms.
The report categorizes Ethiopia as having repressive and closed civic spaces, signifying widespread and routine repression of fundamental freedoms. The report highlighted that 72.4 percent of the global population now lives under similar repressive conditions, while almost 30 percent resides in countries where civic space is completely closed.
The CIVICUS report noted that, compared to last year, an additional 1.5 percentage points of the global population now live in repressed or closed countries.
The report underscores that the killing of prominent politicians and activists such as that of Bate Urgessa, leader of the opposition Oromo Liberation Front in April 2024, highlight the deadly risks faced by political opponents in Ethiopia.
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The report also suggested that Ethiopia has been downgraded from repressed to closed, as ongoing armed conflict and the imposition of state-of-emergency measures in parts of the country have resulted in serious human rights violations and a decline in civic freedoms.
Human rights defenders, journalists, and opposition members face significant challenges in their work, including physical and online surveillance, verbal harassment, intimidation, and threats to halt their activities.
The report raises alarm about an era of accelerating crises, with nationalist populists unraveling democratic institutions and warmongering leaders causing civilian casualties worldwide. Notably, the CIVICUS report issued in December 2024 placed Ethiopia’s score among 29 other countries in the worst category.
Last week, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights echoed its concerns on the subject, highlighting an increasing number of human rights violations committed by law enforcement officials during recent peaceful demonstrations in several states, including Ethiopia, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Uganda.
These violations often involved disproportionate and violent interventions by law enforcement officials during protests and peaceful demonstrations, according to the Commission.
CIVICUS urges governments to take measures to foster a safe, respectful, and enabling environment in which civil society activists and journalists can operate freely without fear of attacks, harassment, intimidation, or reprisals, in line with international human rights commitments.
The alliance also called on officials to repeal legislation that criminalizes expression based on vague concepts such as fake news or disinformation, arguing that such laws are incompatible with proportionality requirements.
CIVICUS is a global alliance of civil society organizations and activists with over 17,000 members in 175 countries working to strengthen citizen action. Civil society members include organizations such as Amnesty International, Oxfam International, Greenpeace, Plan International, and Save the Children.
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