A/HRC/40/60 46. In April 2018, Indian investigative journalist Rana Ayyub was subjected to an online hate campaign and death threats when she was misquoted on Twitter. 12 She was threatened with sexual violence on social media and subjected to misogynistic vitriol and hate speech for being a Muslim woman. A deepfake pornographic video manipulated to include her face was circulated. She was doxed and bombarded with sexual messages. Her reports to the police were not taken seriously, and the perpetrators have yet to be brought to justice. Judicial harassment and criminalization 47. The Special Rapporteur has received many reports of women defenders being subjected to judicial harassment and criminalization. Women defenders whose activism is interpreted as a challenge to religious customs have been charged with blasphemy; women who work on sexual and reproductive rights have been charged with violating so-called public morality laws. False accusations have been made against women defenders, for example, stating that they are engaged in adultery and prostitution or in terrorist acts. They have also been subjected to strategic lawsuits against public participation by businesses, to intimidate and silence them. Denial of participation, restrictions and reprisals for engagement with international and regional human rights systems 48. Women defenders have been excluded from engagement with multilateral institutions, intergovernmental organizations and regional bodies on human rights issues; some have been subjected to reprisals when they have engaged with them all the same. States sometimes delegitimize their work, restricting or prohibiting their participation in international meetings. NGOs have been excluded through the General Assembly’s noobjection procedure, which allows Member States to veto the participation of any NGO without providing a reason. Gaining access to international meetings often poses challenges, such as obtaining visas and funding for travel and even entry to buildings. Women defenders have also reported experiencing sexism, misogyny and racism in multilateral spaces.13 49. A method of undermining women in civil society is the formation of governmentorganized “NGOs”, which then make representations in intergovernmental spaces.14 Such organizations advocate for the support of government policies, enabling States to claim that they cooperate with and support civil society groups while sidelining their critics. They also create an impression of conflict and fragmentation in civil society. 50. Women defenders have been subjected to travel bans, harassment, interrogation, arbitrary detention and physical attacks before and after meetings. On 26 October 2017, for example, five special procedure mandate holders expressed concern over allegations of physical attacks, intimidation and harassment of the executive director of a coalition of human rights defenders of Central Africa, Maximilienne Ngo Mbe, after she participated in the review of Cameroon by the Human Rights Committee (A/HRC/39/41, annex I, para. 7). 51. Of concern to the Special Rapporteur is the withdrawal by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights of the observer status of the Coalition of African Lesbians on 8 August 201815 on the basis of a 2015 decision by the African Union Executive Council wherein the Council considered the Coalition to be an NGO attempting to impose values contrary to African values.16 As civil society organizations have noted,17 this withdrawal of 12 13 14 15 16 17 10 UA IND 10/2018. Submission prepared by the Sexual Rights Initiative, International Women’s Health Coalition, Independent Consultant Cynthia Rothschild and Association for Women’s Rights in Development. Available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/AboutUs/CivilSociety/Procedures/CivilSociety/JointInputSIRI_%20IWH C_CynthiaRothschild_AWRD.pdf. Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation, Suffocating the Movement: Shrinking Space for Women’s Rights (2018). EX.CL./Dec.1015 (XXXIII), para. 8 (vii). EX.CL./Dec.887 (XXVII), para. 7. See http://independenceachpr.org/.