How transnational movements can shield African civil spaces

Defending human rights across Africa and the wider Global South must begin with active listeningOriginally published on Global VoicesA man with his mouth covered. Photo by  Valentin Angel Fernandez. Used with permission. This piece was written by Dr. Stellah Wairimu Bosire, CIVICUS Board Member and the Executive Director of the Africa Center for Health Systems and Gender Justice. Brian Bright Tamuka Kagoro landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport late on a Monday night earlier this year without a weapon, contraband, or any plans to destabilize the state. He carried only his ideas, his convictions, and the weight of four decades spent fighting for justice. As a distinguished Pan-Africanist, constitutional lawyer, and human rights defender, Kagoro entered Kenya through official channels. His passport was stamped, and he cleared immigration. Yet, midway through his transit, state officials intercepted him, confiscated his phones, and blocked him from contacting lawyers, friends, or consular support. For 14 hours, Kenya’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) held him completely incommunicado. When they finally declared him persona non grata and deported him, they offered no explanation, no due process, and no public charges. While his “crime” was never spoken aloud, the underlying message was unmistakable: dissent, solidarity, and independent thought are dangerous. This is a reality that human rights defenders across Africa know intimately. The closing of civic space is no longer just an abstract problem for high-profile opposition leaders. It is a daily hazard for researchers, journalists, lawyers, feminists, and ordinary citizens who dare to ask questions or stand beside those under attack. Turning borders into barriers We are witnessing a dangerous, accelerating trend across the continent where states are actively weaponizing their borders to track and silence activists. In the past, state repression was largely contained within a country’s own frontiers. Today, autocrats are cooperating across borders, using digital surveillance, shared intelligence, and coordinated expulsions to reach dissenters even after they flee into exile. Kenya’s treatment of Kagoro is a stark reminder that leaving home no longer guarantees safety. This cross-border intimidation follows a terrifyingly consistent blueprint. Farther west, we saw a similar architecture of control sweep up Mubarak Bala, a Nigerian humanist blogger who was sentenced to 24 years in prison on blasphemy charges simply for expressing his beliefs. While intense international mobilization ultimately helped secure his release two years later, his ordeal underscores the sheer scale of the threat facing free expression. The data backing up these individual stories is staggering. According to the latest findings from the CIVICUS Monitor, more than 80 percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa now live in countries where civic space is officially classified as “repressed” or “closed.” Out of 50 countries and territories monitored in the region, 44 face severe obstructions or outright closures of fundamental liberties. Furthermore, the data reveals that detaining journalists has become the primary tactic used by African governments to silence independent reporting, with authorities in 33 countries locking up media workers over the past year alone. This onslaught comes at a time when the world’s attention is dangerously fragmented. Preoccupied by wars, economic crises, and shifting geopolitical alliances, many traditional international allies have quietly relegated human rights to a secondary priority. Governments that once positioned themselves as champions of democracy are increasingly prioritizing bilateral trade deals and security agreements over principled confrontations with repressive regimes. When human rights defenders are left to face this isolation alone, authoritarianism creeps into the gaps they leave behind. Borderless emergencies can be met with resilience Yet, history shows that these borderless emergencies can be met with resilience. Localized activism is no longer enough to safeguard front-line activists against state-level overreach; civil society must develop a collaborative, cross-border mutualism. This is precisely why, to coincide with Nelson Mandela International Day, the global launch of the #StandAsMyWitness campaign offers a vital blueprint for citizen-led resistance through transnational solidarity. We have seen, both professionally and personally, how movements sustain people long after institutions fail them. Sometimes what protects a detained activist is not a court order or a government statement, but the knowledge that others are watching, documenting, speaking, organizing, and refusing to let their story disappear. Organizing beyond borders builds pressure through advocacy campaigns, democratic mobilization, diplomatic lobbying, and reputational cost. Transnational solidarity reminds governments that the world is paying attention. It helps ensure detainees are not forgotten, reducing the risk of torture, enforced disappearance, and indefinite imprisonment. International laws also strengthen these advocacy efforts. Under instruments like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, arbitrary arrest is prohibited, giving global movements the legal leverage to force compliance. This campaign brings a crucial message of hope to a gloomy landscape. It reminds us that international public mobilization tangibly works — a fact proven by the successful physical release of 31 human rights defenders globally who were once kept in the dark but freed because global movements refused to let them be forgotten. For this solidarity to remain effective, however, it must adapt. True solidarity across borders cannot simply replicate old power dynamics or top-down hierarchies. It requires an “ecology of knowledge” — a genuine recognition that the most vital insights and strategies come directly from local communities and grassroots movements fighting on the front lines. Defending human rights across Africa and the wider Global South must begin with active listening. We have to recognize that our individual struggles for justice are deeply interconnected. Human rights defenders are not threats to national security; they are the critical infrastructure holding our societies together, and they are a line of defense we cannot afford to leave unprotected. Written by Guest Contributor