Going Beyond Anti-Rights

In the SWANA region, states are seeking new ways to cling to power. This report maps two mutually reinforcing technologies of governance in the SWANA region: 

• States are capturing global capital at the expense of women, LGBTQI+, migrant workers and indigenous communities, while punishing dissent. 
• The engineering of the "ideal citizen" as a tool for authoritarian control at home

The findings reveal how surveillance, criminalization, and the persecution of activists are normalized and concealed by states that brand themselves as tolerant and progressive. It also traces the ways these technologies are rooted in colonial structures and sustained through global capitalist systems.