© ACHPR
ISHR drew attention to the dire human rights situation in the Sahel, Guinea, Madagascar, and Palestine, in particular in relation to the situation of human rights defenders.
On 23 October 2025, as part of the 85th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), ISHR delivered an oral statement on the human rights situation in Africa.
On the Sahel, ISHR highlighted the numerous acts of intimidation, reprisals, arbitrary detentions, and enforced disappearances committed by authorities in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso against human rights defenders.
In this regard, ISHR called for the full implementation and operationalisation of existing human rights defenders protection legislation in these three countries and called on the Commission to ensure the protection of human rights defenders against attacks. This follows ISHR’s support of Sahelian human rights defenders in May 2025, during the 83rd session of the ACHPR.
On Guinea, ISHR similarly noted the shrinking civic space in the country since the unconstitutional change in government in 2021. To reverse this trend, ISHR called on Guinean authorities to continue collaborating with civil society towards the adoption of a human rights defenders protection law and called on the African Commission to support to the full inclusion of the rights of human rights defenders in the national legal systems of African states. This follows on previous ISHR engagement on Guinea.
On Madagascar, ISHR condemned the violence against peaceful protesters and the instability on the island, as the country suffered an unconstitutional change in government, calling for the full protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in the country, and for a return to constitutional government.
For more on the situation of human rights defenders in African island States, including Madagascar, see ISHR’s 2025 report on the matter.
The statement also raised the issue of the continued destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the attacks against human rights defenders who work on or express solidarity with the Palestinian cause – for more on this, see ISHR’s September 2025 open statement on the matter. ISHR called for the African Commission to follow up on its November 2024 and August 2025 resolutions on the situation in Gaza by asking African States to adopt concrete and binding sanctions against Israel.
This follows ISHR’s support of Palestinian self-determination in November 2024 during the 81st session of the ACHPR.
Following the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders to the Human Rights Council, ISHR commended her work, denounced human rights violations and encouraged the next mandate-holder to continue the effective work of the protecting defenders worldwide in collaboration with regional mechanisms.
The Human Rights Council President has proposed that States select Bolaños Vargas as the Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders by the end of the body’s ongoing 61st session.
In a stark setback for civil society at the UN, members of the Committee on NGOs moved to strip two organisations of their consultative status, with several more NGOs likely to face similar action in upcoming sessions.
