US added to international watchlist for rapid decline in freedoms

March Watchlist 2025 The new CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist highlights serious concerns regarding the exercise of civic freedoms https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/

The United States in early March was added to the CIVICUS Monitor Human Rights Watchlist. CIVICUS is a global research organization that studies and publishes the status of freedoms and threats to civil liberties in various countries around the world each year. CIVICUS has pointed to Trump’s erratic use of executive orders, mass firings of federal workers, dismantling of foreign aid programs, antagonism of journalists and efforts to tamp down pro-Palestinian protests as just some of the reasons for the change in the United States status.

The US has been classified as “narrowed” the “narrowed” label is CIVICUS’ assessment that while most people are still able to exercise their rights of expression, free speech, and assembly, there are ongoing and concerning attempts to violate these rights by the government. CIVICUS co-Secretary General Mandeep Tiwana stated that “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 White House in response has rejected CIVICUS’ assessment, with Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly stating “This is nonsense: President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history”. 

Ukraine accepts US backed ceasefire deal but Russia is on the fence

US and Ukraine officials sit together at peace talks hosted in Saudi Arabia. Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced this week that Ukraine has accepted the 30-day ceasefire deal after peace talks with the United States in Saudi Arabia. Washington has in turn lifted its pause on military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv. The ceasefire proposal is only eight paragraphs long, with meagre details beyond the desire to rapidly press ahead and does not mention any security guarantees to Ukraine. It does include the promise of both sides to exchange prisoners of war, the release of civilian detainees, and the return of forcibly transferred Ukrainian children to Russia.

Russian President Putin says he accepts the deal in principle but calls for more details before it is finalized.

Former Philippine President under arrest

Duterte speaking at a rally on Sunday. Two days later, he was arrested at an airport in Manila. Vernon Yuen/AP

Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has been placed in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands following his arrest in Manila earlier this week. His arrest comes after his time as president where he oversaw a years-long anti-drugs crackdown that left thousands of Filipino citizens dead in its wake. The ICC confirmed it had issued an arrest warrant for Duterte on charges of the crime of murder as a crime against humanity, for actions it alleges were committed between November 1, 2011 and March 16, 2019.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2019, a move condemned by critics as an effort to shield himself from accountability. But under the ICC’s withdrawal mechanism, the court keeps jurisdiction over crimes committed during the membership period of a state, which in this case, is between 2016, when his term started, and 2019 when he pulled the Philippines out. Duterte is still supported politically within the country. His daughter Sara Duterte, who is the country’s vice president, has condemned her fathers arrest.

Violence against Alawites in Syria

A Syrian man walks past burnt out cars in Jableh town, south of Latakia, following a spate of violence between Syrian security forces and armed groups loyal to deposed president Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s coastal region [Moawia Atrash/Picture Alliance via Getty Images]

More than 1,000 people have been killed in two days of clashes between security forces linked to Syria’s new government and fighters from Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect in the country’s coastal region. The Alawite community is the second-largest religious group in Syria after Sunni Muslims. The recent clashes began after coordinated attacks by gunmen loyal to the Assad regime killed over 200 members of the new government’s security forces. In response, government forces along with aligned armed groups carried out reprisal attacks in Alawite villages throughout the region killing hundreds of civilians. Syria’s interim President Ahmed Sharaa said the deadly violence is a threat to his mission to unite the country and announced the formation of a fact-finding committee to investigate the violations against civilians and find those responsible for them.