ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the motivations behind the formation of civil society organisations intent on confronting state crime, and behind individuals’ decisions to join them. Experiences of state violence, economic injustice and religious ‘unfreedom’ emerge as the most salient motives. Unsurprisingly, these are all conditions created by the state, which can indeed be considered forms of state crime.
Other, more immediate, influences played important roles in shaping civil activism – the family, university, formative political events, international news outlets and existing civil society organisations. Each of these influences, however, was shaped by practices of state criminality and responded to them. Having stimulated resistance by their social injustice, intolerance and violence, repressive states do their best to prevent an independent, critical civil society from flourishing.
