US added to international civil liberties watchlist for ‘serious decline’ in civic freedom
10 March 2025, 16:02
The United States has been added to an international watchlist of a global civil rights non-profit that monitors countries which are undergoing rapid declines in their civic freedoms.
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The US has been placed alongside Pakistan, Congo, Italy and Serbia on the first Civicus Monitor Watchlist of 2025.
Civicus is an international rights watchdog with the goal of “strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world,” monitoring 198 countries on the planet for its civic freedoms.
The watchlist is designed to draw attention to places where there is a ‘serious decline’ in civic liberties, and is based on Civicus’s research findings, their partners and on-the-ground activists.
Countries that have been listed on previous watchlists include Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
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The United States has been placed on the list due to “increasing undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term”.
“Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association,” the website adds.
Civicus says Trump’s executive orders ‘designed to unravel democratic institutions, rule of law, and global cooperation’ have contributed to the decline of civic freedoms.
Mandeep Tiwana, Interim Co-Secretary General of CIVICUS said: “This is an unparalleled attack on the rule of law in the United States, not seen since the days of McCarthyism in the twentieth century.
“Restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cutbacks, and intimidation tactics through threatening pronouncements by senior officials in the administration are creating an atmosphere to chill democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal.
“The Trump administration seems hellbent on dismantling the system of checks and balances which are the pillars of a democratic society.”
In their news release, Civicus listed a number of actions taken by the Trump administration that will “severely impact constitutional freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, and association”.
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Among these, the organisation counts America’s decision to withdraw from key international bodies including the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Human Rights Council; the decision to cut long-standing and vital foreign aid programmes; and the mass firings of federal employees.
Other factors included Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, and the unprecedented move that saw journalists banned from the White House as the administration puts limits on media access.
These decisions “will likely impact civic freedoms and reverse hard-won human rights gains around the world,” Civicus says.
“We urge the United States to uphold the rule of law and respect constitutional and international human rights norms,” said Tiwana.
“Americans across the political spectrum are appalled by the undemocratic actions of the current administration.”
The US is now rated as having a ‘narrowed’ civic space, typically given to countries where ‘democratic freedoms, such as the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association, are increasingly being violated’.
