Dr Mmeli Dube. Image: SuppliedHuman rights and democracy are increasingly contested, with countries defending them selectively while economic interests often take priority over people’s rights. Governments restrict freedoms in the name of public safety, while digital surveillance and authoritarianism make it harder to organise and speak out. Meanwhile, the waning international support and protection for human rights defenders (HRDs), who are on the receiving end, worsen the challenges.
The University of the Western Cape’s Politics and Urban Governance Research Group (PUG), through its African Universities Hub for Human Rights, recently hosted the third Africa Hub Summer School, which was shaped by these challenges.
Human rights defenders, the people who actively and peacefully work to protect and promote the rights and freedoms of others, are increasingly dismissed as Western puppets. Some anti-rights movements even argue that human rights are incompatible with African cultural and religious values.
This contest extends beyond the rejection of human rights as supposedly Western or un-African. In his lecture, Professor Brian Raftopoulos drew attention to another side of this contest. As he pointed out, right-wing movements are borrowing ideas associated with Antonio Gramsci about how civil society shapes public opinion, and using civil society to promote their own political visions and influence what people think and value. This matters because the struggle over human rights and democracy is also a struggle over public ideas and values, and over whose interests they serve. Human rights defenders must therefore engage not only in defending rights but also in challenging narratives that undermine them.
At the same time, within the human rights and democracy movements, defenders are reflecting on whether the concepts and approaches they have inherited remain adequate to the challenges they face. This raises questions about how human rights and democracy should be understood in the current context. Technology presents another tension: it is both an important tool for organising and a means of surveillance and targeting activists. A presentation by Paul Munatsi of Digital Society Africa explored the political economy of surveillance. On the one hand, corporations collect and sell defenders’ personal data. On the other hand, governments can use that data to monitor, control or harm them. This highlighted the need for HRDs to have the tools and skills not only to work effectively, but also to protect themselves and work safely.
Human rights defenders, therefore, need to sharpen their ability to read the moment, rethink their approaches, remain effective, and do this work safely and sustainably. This was the starting point for this year's summer school, which brought together 26 participants from 17 countries across the African continent, including activists and early-career researchers working on areas such as environmental rights, women’s rights, access to health, and broader human rights and democracy concerns.
This year’s Summer School was designed around a central question: what does it mean to be a human rights defender in Africa at a time when the political, economic and technological conditions for human rights and democracy are changing so rapidly? Rather than focusing only on the immediate challenges facing activists, the programme created space to step back, examine the forces shaping those challenges, question some of the assumptions underlying dominant approaches to human rights and democracy, and think about what might need to change.
Three interconnected lectures by leading scholars combined political economy and decolonial thinking, moving from the global power dynamics shaping human rights defending (Professor Brian Raftopoulos), to the knowledge systems underpinning dominant approaches (Professor Joel Modiri), and finally to positioning HRDs as thinkers and producers of knowledge who can shape African human rights discourse and activist practice (Professor Morgan Ndlovu).
The School then connected these discussions to practice through training on storytelling for HRDs, led by Professor Fiona Anciano and Babongile Bidla; digitalisation and the risks facing human rights defenders; digital tools and security, led by Paul Munatsi; and, wellbeing and self-care, facilitated by Arise Family.
The aim was to bridge analysis and practice, because effective human rights defence requires both an understanding of the structures that shape the work and practical strategies for navigating them.
A session explored ways to build relationships and strengthen solidarity across movements and countries. It also highlighted the growing importance and difficulty of building solidarity across borders. Economic crises, anti-immigration laws, growing hostility towards migrants, and the conflicts and risks facing human rights defenders make solidarity harder to sustain. Yet authoritarian governments are increasingly cooperating, sharing surveillance technologies and adopting similar laws to restrict civic space. As states strengthen these cross-border connections, activists need to work more closely across countries, echoing Professor Joel Modiri’s call to bring different communities and struggles together to challenge the systems that sustain inequality and oppression.
The School represents a significant step forward for the Africa Hub, building on the experience of the first two editions in 2024 and 2025 to bring together theoretical and practical knowledge with practical skills, reflection, peer learning and solidarity. The discussions raise a broader question for universities, funders and human rights defenders on how they can work together to ensure that HRDs have not only the resources and protection they need, but also the space to question established approaches, produce knowledge and shape the future of human rights and democracy in Africa.
