More than 90 human rights defenders from the Euro-Mediterranean region gathered at The Nonviolence Factory.

More than 90 human rights defenders from the Euro-Mediterranean region gathered at The Nonviolence Factory.

From November 11 to 15, we brought together over 90 human rights defenders for a training school aimed at promoting strategies to confront authoritarianism and defend human rights. This initiative seeks to offer a collective response to the rise of authoritarian governments and mass surveillance tactics.

The goal is to explore strategies of nonviolent civil resistance and to learn how to organize collectively to foster a new ecosystem based on human rights, nonviolence, and democracy.

The specific theme of the 2024 edition focuses on mass surveillance and the use of new technologies to control civil society and restrict the working space of human rights defenders.

Participants include human rights defenders from across the Euro-Mediterranean region, representing countries such as Palestine, Western Sahara, Kurdistan, Belarus, Ukraine, Iraq, and Jordan.

Throughout the event, we held workshops and training sessions through group activities, creating a space of trust and shared knowledge. It also served as a platform for networking and collective reflection.

As part of The Nonviolence Factory, we organized the event “Surveillance in the Digital Age: Challenges and Solutions to Protect Democracy” at the Parliament of Catalonia. The event aimed to highlight the impact of mass surveillance on civic space in the Euro-Mediterranean region and to present the report “Mass Surveillance in the Maghreb and Mashreq: A critical Analysis to protect civil society.”