Human rights defenders, environmentalists, the press and other members of civil society face a hostile landscape across virtually all of America. The report Citizen power 2025 —published this Tuesday by the collaborative research platform CIVICUS Monitor— highlights that only 10 of the continent’s 35 countries have an “open” civic environment, while all the others are “under pressure” to varying degrees. This finding, according to the document, shows a “general decline” in freedoms in the region.
Citizen power is an annual report which, since 2018, assesses the state of civil liberties around the world over the past twelve months. This latest edition, published a day before the commemoration of International Human Rights Day, presents an America “under severe test” due to attacks on journalists, the detention and killing of human rights defenders and the excessive use of force during protests.
The report ranks civic spaces in countries around the world into five categories: closed, repressed, obstructed, reduced and open (from worst to best). Among the 35 U.S. countries, the civic environment is rated “closed” in three countries, “repressed” in seven, “obstructed” in six, “reduced” in nine, and “open” in ten. When it comes to population distribution, 90% of the continent’s residents are in countries in the worst two categories, with 60% in obstructed civic spaces and 30% in closed spaces.
Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela are in the worst category, as in previous reports. “In a closed civic space, we understand that it is impossible to exercise any type of citizen participation in the streets, whether it is protest, freedom of expression, the ability to associate or work in an organized way with other groups or organizations,” explains Ana María Palacios, Americas researcher at CIVICUS Monitor, via video call.
But what is new in the report is the “deterioration of consolidated democracies”, such as the United States and Argentina, which show “signs of a rapid authoritarian drift, marked by the weakening of the rule of law and increasing restrictions on an independent civil society”. The civic spaces of these two nations have moved from the category of “reduced” to that of “obstructed”. In the case of Argentina, this is the first time that it has fallen into this category since the publication of the report.
Countries going down
For Palacios, Argentina and the United States illustrate regional decline marked by “rapid deterioration.” “In less than a year, both countries have generated enough deterioration in civil liberties to sound the alarm,” he says.
The researcher explains that the case of the United States is marked by “a concentration of power in the hands of the Executive, decrees that restricted funds for international cooperation and the dismantling of federal institutions.” Likewise, Palacios points to “the militarization of the streets” in response to protests that have arisen against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and in defense of migrant communities.
Another factor relevant to the United States’ rating was “the increased persecution and criminalization of those who express solidarity with the Palestinian people.” Palacios explains that while this is not a new problem – in the previous Joe Biden administration, “a clearly repressive wave” began to be documented – with Donald Trump’s return to power in this second term, an “inappropriate use of immigration laws to persecute those who denounced international crimes committed by Israel or who took a critical stance” was documented. According to Palacios, the government used “laws dating back to the 1950s” to classify these people “as terrorists and a direct threat to the interests of the United States.”
Argentina, for its part, has also experienced an intensification of repression due to reforms to the right to demonstrate promoted by the government of Javier Milei in December 2023. For the researcher, the so-called “anti-picketing protocol” has generated an “excessive use of force”. “We are witnessing a worrying turning point in Argentina, another country historically known for its consolidated democratic institutions,” Palacios says, adding that the “dismantling of state institutions” could follow “a very similar line to that of the United States.”
El Salvador is another country whose rating has worsened in this new report, going from “obstructed” (third position) to “repressed” (second worst). According to Palacios, this decline in this Central American country “does not respond to specific events of 2025”, but rather to “a systematic erosion of civil liberties”, which dates back to the arrival of President Nayib Bukele, in 2019, and the state of exception decreed in 2022 and still in force.
“We have moved from cases of arbitrary arrests of community leaders to arrests of those who have led anti-corruption processes in the country, as is the case of human rights defender and lawyer Ruth López, who remains detained,” explains the researcher. Palacios also highlights the “reprisals against those who came out to demonstrate” with the aim of “completely stifling independent civil society critical of the government”.
Human rights defenders in the spotlight
CIVICUS Monitor says America remains the deadliest region in the world for human rights defenders. Data shows that among the most common civil rights violations on the continent are the arrest and killing of these types of activists (the list is complemented by attacks and intimidation of journalists and excessive use of force during protests).
In twelve countries (including Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru), “cases of activists murdered because of their work” have been documented. The report warns of the increase in “arbitrary arrests, criminalization and smear campaigns” against these people, with an impact “particularly devastating for those who defend LGBTQI rights, democracy or the environment”.
In the case of environmentalists, the report highlights the Escazú Agreement, a 2022 regional treaty intended to offer guarantees to these activists, but which many states have still not ratified. For researchers, this agreement constitutes “an urgent regional need” because it establishes obligations to ensure that environmental defenders can carry out their work without suffering violence.
“Although the Escazú Agreement is not yet fully implemented and there is little progress in this direction, we have states like Chile, which are trying to go further in developing national plans around the agreement,” says Palacios, and emphasizes that other signatory countries must “do more to translate commitments into practical action plans.”
In some cases, threats against human rights defenders extend beyond national borders. CIVICUS Monitor notes that exiled activists from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have become “increasingly the target of attacks.” “In terms of transnational repression, the most representative case is that of Nicaragua, because exile is not a safe place for many defenders who have had to flee,” adds Palacios.
Investigators have documented incidents such as assaults and murders, and are focusing on the case of Roberto Samcam, a former Nicaraguan military officer turned opponent of Daniel Ortega’s regime, who was murdered in June this year in his home in Costa Rica, where he had been living as a political refugee since 2018.
Transnational persecution also affects Venezuelans exiled in Colombia, particularly after Nicolas Maduro’s disputed re-election in 2024. The researchers take as an example an attack last October, in which Venezuelan human rights defender Yendri Velásquez and political consultant Luis Peche were attacked and shot dead in Colombia.
“The attack on civil liberties extends beyond countries where restrictions on civil space are most severe, even in countries where civil liberties are widely protected,” the report said.
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