A/HRC/34/56 and their obligation to exercise due diligence in ensuring rights from harm by non-State actors are relevant, as is finding creative ways to hold non-State actors directly accountable. 34. Governments and non-governmental forces have been involved in promoting fundamentalism and extremism abroad, including through funding and education that is not compliant with international standards, and this has had significant consequences for cultural rights. Such contributing factors must be documented, condemned and combated. 35. It is also critical that the international community listen to the local opponents of fundamentalism and extremism, human rights defenders, including women human rights defenders, who have in some cases been battling them alone for decades. Despite unparalleled expertise, they are often not invited to international gatherings to discuss strategy, nor is their work consulted, nor do they receive sufficient solidarity. 36. Civil society plays a vital role in combating fundamentalism and extremism using diverse strategies. Wherever there are active fundamentalist and extremist movements, there are also peaceful opponents of those movements. For example, Católicas por el Derecho a Decidir advocates for women’s rights across Latin America with a feminist interpretation of Catholic doctrine and innovative animated series “Catolicadas”.16 37. However, civil society is often constrained in its ability to carry out these functions through limitations on freedom of association, arrest, harassment, threats and violence (see Human Rights Council resolution 32/31). In certain instances, civil society groups that oppose fundamentalist and extremist ideologies are themselves branded as threats to State security and “terrorists”. This gravely undermines the much-needed struggle against fundamentalism and extremism. 38. The civil society actors confronting fundamentalists require resources, structures, visibility and access to media outlets so that their efforts can crystallize into a more systematic and institutionalized opposition; many of them have called for clear support for the separation of religion and State as a way of bolstering their efforts. 39. The Special Rapporteur notes that there are also groups in civil society that promote and act upon fundamentalist and extremist agendas harmful to human rights and this is an issue that the international human rights movement must itself tackle.17 While “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms” according to the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, such human rights defenders must accept the universality of human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and act in accordance with international human rights norms.18 Groups that promote fundamentalist and extremist agendas aiming at the destruction of such rights and that undermine universality cannot be viewed as human rights defenders and, while their own human rights must be respected, as per the terms of human rights norms, they should not misuse the mantle of human rights to advance their destructive activities and agendas. 16 17 18 See http://catolicasmexico.org/ns/?page_id=4464. See, e.g., Observatory on the Universality of Rights (forthcoming, 2016), “Periodic report on antirights trends at the international human rights level”. Note also the issues raised by leading South Asian human rights defenders “about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination” in the “Global petition to Amnesty International: restoring the integrity of human rights”, February 2010. Available at www.global-sisterhood-network.org/content/view/2412/76/. See www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/SRHRDefenders/Pages/Defender.aspx. 9