Once they were celebrated as campaigners for freedom and human rights. Now in many parts of the world, the powers that be see activists as obstacles to economic growth and "foreign agents." Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly targeted by power-wielders across the globe.

"All those who protest come under attack," said Barbara Unmüssig, president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is affiliated with the German Green party. "We are concerned because we see a general trend, regardless of the regimes in question."

Persecution in the name of the fatherland

Russia has played a negative and pioneering role in the worldwide crackdown on NGOs. On Wednesday, the Duma's Federation Council placed 12 foreign NGOs in Russia on a blacklist, thereby threatening them with a ban on any further activity.

Freezing bank accounts, closing offices, arresting activists, filing expensive lawsuits for damages - the tools of political intimidation used against NGOs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, not only in Russia but around the world. In the digital universe censorship is rampant: websites are shut down, Twitter and YouTube are blocked.

According to a survey provided by the Giga Institute for Global and Regional Studies, India revoked licenses for some 9,000 NGOs to accept subsidies. Greenpeace has had to fight against blocked bank accounts and legal action for damages because it had - successfully, for the time being - protested against building coal mines in India's Mahan forests, one of the oldest forest areas in Asia.

Democracy gone astray

"The Indian secret service has published a report which accuses NGOs such as Greenpeace of hampering economic growth," said Greenpeace spokesperson Niklas Schinerl. "In my experience, the approach chosen by India to crack down on environmental campaigners is shared by very few states. Russia is one of them."

Other organizations, like the German Welthungerhilfe and Bread for the World, also said they feel that their local partners are coming under increasing political pressure, which makes their work more difficult. The range of repressions stretches from withdrawal of an NGO's registration to expulsion and arrest of employees or associates.

Draft legislation in Cambodia demands that all NGOs working in the country commit to political neutrality.

"The real aim is to take control over any initiatives by citizens who want to express their views," states a joint letter of protest, submitted by Bread for the World and 50 other NGOs. "This smacks of muzzling."

Not only Russia, China, Cambodia and India have targeted NGOs. Civil rights activists and environmental campaigners are under observation in Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Hungary, Ecuador and Bolivia as well.

'We must defend ourselves!'

According to press reports, at the end of June Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, threatened to expel all NGOs that opposed extraction of crude oil in nature reserves.

"Bolivians will not work as forest guards for industrialized nations," he declared, adding that the nature reserves had been created by the "North American Empire" as a compensation for its own environmental sins.

A global sense of disillusionment has fallen on many activists and NGOs.

"Until a decade ago, NGOs seemed to have potential to become the foundation of a global civil society," stated Giga Institute researchers Günter Schucher and Katja Drinhausen. Many regimes, they added, now contained civil society in order to regain political control.

And that's not all. An open competition has broken out between democratic and anti-democratic civil societies. "China and Russia have learnt from the West - they set up NGOs as well," said Unmüssig: "China does it by establishing so-called cultural institutes worldwide, and via support from media which convey the Chinese perspective."

The president of the Heinrich Böll Foundation said it's high time for closer collaboration among all threatened organizations.

"It is absolutely essential that all those who support critical partners in the global South start thinking about how to respond strategically to this new challenge," Unmüssig said. "We must defend ourselves!"