2025: a year of civic commitment, resilience, and collective action
As we bid farewell to 2025, we look back on this year with gratitude, awareness, and a deep sense of the collective work that has engaged us every day in the defence of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
The challenges we faced
2025 has once again shown how civic space, the rule of law, and fundamental rights remain under pressure. In Italy, as also highlighted by the 2025 Rule of Law Report, persistent structural shortcomings affect the independence of the judiciary, the balance of powers, and the effective protection of rights. In this context, CILD has continued to play a role of monitoring, accountability, and policy advocacy—without stepping back.
Advocacy and public pressure
We continued our advocacy work on some of the most critical issues in the public debate, starting with migration policies and the system of immigration detention centres (CPRs), reaffirming the need to move beyond a model based on administrative detention and opacity, which is incompatible with fundamental rights.
Strengthening civil society voices
In 2025, we made a strong investment in strengthening civil society capacities. Through the Media Academy, we supported activists involved in the citizenship referendum campaign, working alongside communication experts to increase message impact, the ability to shape public debate, and the effectiveness of mobilisations. Because rights also live in the media space.
Training, tools, and shared knowledge
We continued to promote training pathways and the development of concrete tools, driven by the belief that rights are defended by making them understandable, accessible, and actionable—both in institutional settings and in social and communicative contexts.
European projects: rights, justice, and civic space
2025 was also a year of intense work at the European level, through projects aimed at strengthening rights protection and civil society’s capacity to act:
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STRIVE, addressing the link between the rule of law and climate justice, and strengthening the role of civic organisations in environmental challenges;
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SCUDI, dedicated to the protection of fundamental rights and the fight against systemic violations, with a focus on safeguarding people in vulnerable situations;
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ACCESS, strengthening civil society’s strategic communication on key issues such as civic space, citizenship, and rights, expanding the impact of advocacy work;
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DignityFIRM, focused on protecting undocumented migrant workers in the agri-food supply chain, addressing exploitation, marginalisation, and violations of dignity;
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LITIS, supporting strategic litigation as a tool to defend the rights of persons with disabilities and to drive systemic change;
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CEPOV, dedicated to strengthening the rights and protection of victims of crime through training, European cooperation, and multidisciplinary approaches.
Different projects, united by a shared conviction: rights are not concessions—they are obligations.
A network that makes the difference
None of this would have been possible without the strength of our network: CILD’s member organisations, partner associations, activists, and professionals who choose every day to defend rights and freedoms, even when doing so is complex.
2025 leaves us with one certainty: the work for civil liberties is never neutral or easy—but it is necessary.
We will continue in 2026 with the same determination, because a democracy without rights is not a democracy.
