#civil-society

#civil-society

Blanche and all the others have been blaming Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey. Alternatively, they smear paid agitators. But the federal cowboys who flooded Minnesota streets actually ran headfirst into the state's formidable civil society a network of civically engaged people and organizations that makes this a risky place for the federal government to pick a fight with its own citizens.

Mr Boland told the Irish Independent it was "an extraordinary honour" to meet with the Pope, who he said expressed empathy across the range of topics they discussed. "I met a very human Pope, a very human person, a person who seriously cares about people in disadvantage," he said. "He clearly had empathy with my mandate, which is to bring civil society to the heart of Europe in terms of policy making."

We won't remain silent, we won't forget Palestine.

Like me and some others, Victor has discussed and written about the Islamist and neo-fascist threat facing both parties and our country and its spread throughout the world, continued Levin. We are not alone in our deep concern about what is happening. But I often wonder, why are there not many more voices, people who I know and have known for years, who've been outspoken about other threats to our nation, speaking out now?

The president of the European Economic and Social Committee, tells Mary McCarthy about how much he enjoys his work - and how he still makes time to help on the farm at weekends In October, I was elected president of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), one of the five EU institutions created by the Treaty of Rome in the 1950s.

In September 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order labeling "antifa"—short for "antifascism"—a domestic terrorist threat. Around the same time, Trump issued a presidential memorandum known as NSPM-7, which identifies "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," "anti-Christianity," and "extremism on migration, race, and gender" as indicators of potential violence. The memorandum directs the secretaries of the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Homeland Security, along with the attorney general, to "investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations" that support antifascist organizing.

Perryman said the stakes go beyond courtroom victories. The real challenge is demonstrating that the public truly holds the power to counter and often stop the White House's seemingly unstoppable march toward authoritarian rule. "The real thing for us was, how are we going to show people that you actually still get to be in charge in your country-the people get to be in charge," Perryman told moderator and host of the podcast Pod Save America, Jon Favreau.

Ukraine is increasingly a country held together, behind the military lines, by women. Those in their 30s millennial women born into an independent Ukraine, raised in economic turbulence and thrust into adulthood on the wave of revolution and war are shouldering huge burdens of responsibility. They are fundraising for the army, or sometimes serving in it. They are running civil society organisations, advocating for their country abroad and becoming activists.

It's easy to take democracy and civil society for granted when it's all you have known. Americans are aware of the repression and brutality in faraway lands. But for most, autocracy is a word: not a threat, not a way of life. If you are born in an unfree state-like my guest, Oleksandra Matviichuk, and I were-it is a different story. We were both born in the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, known to you as the U.S.S.R., Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez is contemplating a move into politics, following a gap in the liberal space in Spain after Ciudadanos' decline. She aims to launch a new liberal party.

"Nobody really knows what's happening," one project manager running a Syria-based project told DW about the US cuts in aid funding. "They haven't put a complete stop to it yet so we're just spending the money on a monthly basis and hoping for the best."

The League of Social Democrats (LSD), the last remaining active pro-democracy party in China-ruled Hong Kong, has announced its disbandment due to immense political pressure.

"It's a very big issue that transcends, really, the most basic aspects of freedom and citizens' ability to participate in their governmental processes."

"The attempted intrusion by DOGE - a temporary, un-elected and non-Congressionally approved agency - toward the Vera Institute should alarm every American."

When Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took over most of the country's capital Khartoum in the early days of the war, the youth-led civil society initiative Hadhreen kept its food kitchens open.