John Mamainlo / EPA
Donald Trump
“Attack of the president to democratic norms and global cooperation” places the US as “closed” on Civicus’s surveillance list.
The United States was placed on the Civicus Monitor surveillance list, a global alliance and civil society group network) – which includes amnesty International and defends citizens’ action in areas where civil liberties are limited.
The announcement was made on Sunday, at a time when the group records a “attack by President Donald Trump to democratic rules and global cooperation,” reads.
Civicus describes the actions of US administration as a “attack” on fundamental democratic principles, which includes “restrictive executive orders, unjustifiable institutional cuts and intimidation tactics Through threatening pronouncements by senior administration officials are creating an atmosphere to cool democratic dissent, a cherished American ideal. ”
“A Trump Administration seems committed to dismantling the control and balance system that are the pillars of a democratic society“Says Mandeep Tiwana, interim co-secretary-general of Civicus in the statement.
The US joins countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy, Pakistan and Serbia on Civicus’s observation list, which classifies civil freedoms into five categories, from “open” to “closed”.
Os USA were classified as “closed”a classification that suggests that civil liberties, such as freedom of expression and meeting, are still widely protected, but are increasingly threatened, with a “decline of open civic space” and “repressive legislation that restricts freedom of expression and dialogue, obstacles to civil society activities and operations and repression of civil disobedience and peaceful manifestations”.
Civicus stresses that Americans continue to have access to basic freedoms, although the environment has become more restrictive, with new political pressures on the mediaas the Trump Administration’s recent decision to restrict and choose journalists who can ask you questions, or the guidance of Amazon billionaire and executive director Jeff Bezos, directed at the opinion columnists of their newspaper The Washington Post, to defend “individual freedoms” and “free market”, failing to publish these points of view to them.
The lawsuit brought by the Associated Press against Trump administration officials, after the news agency was prevented from attending the White House information meetings, also accounts for US inclusion on this list. It is recalled that AP was fought by Trump to participate in these meetings because it was refused to join the editorial directive of the new administration to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”in accordance with a new executive order signed by Trump.
“Americans of all the political spectrum are shocked by the undemocratic actions of the current administration,” says Civicus.
