IN BURUNDI, lawyers who dared expose torture by its governing party’s youth wing face disbarment; human rights activists are regularly targeted in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and in Zimbabwe, a nonagenarian runs roughshod over an increasingly poverty-stricken country. Protestors gunned down by Ethiopian security forces are unable to get the kind of global support that was once the norm.Even in SA, with its exemplary Constitution, the ANC is constantly blaming outsiders for growing dissent over corruption and its violation of the rule of law.Even though the world is more connected today than it has ever been, the democratic space on the continent is rapidly shrinking. One of the main reasons for this is that the role of civil society has been curtailed drastically, largely due to a lack of funding for African nongovernmental organisations and the financial crunch media institutions face, forcing them to cut coverage of the continent.While the global financial crisis curbed supp...
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