Civil society demands a voice in Commonwealth
As Malta prepares to chair the Commonwealth for the next two years, NGOs have called on the Prime Minister to promote the protection of civil society, prevent their bases from closing and ensure they have a voice.
“We cannot rely on a dicey colonial past to keep us together,” Maja Daruwala, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, said yesterday.
“We must leverage civil society if we want it to be relevant in the future. We want to pass a strong message to the Commonwealth that we expect it to engage with and protect civil society and its spaces.”