Overview
- The ninth Atlas of Civil Society, published Monday, reports that only 3.4% of people worldwide — about 277 million — live in countries rated fully open across 39 states.
- Nearly 73% of the global population lives where protest, association and speech face heavy limits, with activists harassed, jailed or killed and news outlets censored.
- Germany is downgraded to the restricted tier, with the report citing authorities’ handling of Gaza-war protests as a central reason.
- Italy, France, Switzerland and the United States are also rated restricted this year, categories where groups are monitored and protests are often broken up by force.
- Using Civicus’s five-step scale, the atlas counts 82 countries as repressed or closed — two more than in 2025 — and it warns that disinformation is used to delegitimize civic action.