RightsCon Tunis 2019

During active conflict, a country’s leadership often struggles to balance national security interests while simultaneously cultivating respect for fundamental freedoms. More often than not, national security will stand paramount to fundamental freedoms, while the activists who defend those freedoms will fall into the line of fire. In Europe and Eurasia, and the obsoletely named ‘post-Soviet’ context in particular, countries struggle with the unique challenge of artificially constructed conflicts. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are important examples of environments beset by conflict where activists are taking a variety of measures and developing intersectional and forward-thinking partnerships with a wide range of civil society actors, including journalists, the IT community, entrepreneurs, lawyers, and others to address threats to civic space. This session will focus on effective measures that Ukrainian, Moldovan, and Georgian civil society have taken to protect civic space and fundamental rights in this context, particularly through effective partnerships and coalitions, emergency response, public outreach online and offline, evidence-based approaches to systematically, securely, and professionally monitor and document rights abuses, and avenues for advocacy at the local, national, and international levels to effect change.