Nasrin Sotoudeh has devoted her life to speaking out against the injustices of the Iranian regime’s systematic violations of human rights, women’s rights, the rights of minorities, political rights, the… Read more »
The U.S. Department of State has announced the winners of the annual Global Human Rights Defender Awards, determined by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. From working to… Read more »
The public executions of Moshen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard convicted of “waging war against God” and “corruption on Earth” have triggered criticism from senior clerics in Iran, RFE/RL’s Farda Briefing… Read more »
Dissidents in China, Hong Kong and elsewhere have noted the appalling consequences in the last century when liberal democracies failed to stand up sufficiently strongly against totalitarian regimes, notes Oxford… Read more »
Factory workers, students and business owners in Belarus on Monday began a strike to demand that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko resign after more than two months of continuing mass protests… Read more »
Yes, says Freedom House (above). “The authoritarians can act worse under the cover of the pandemic because the democracies are not united in effective, moral, concerted leadership,” adds Irwin Cotler, the… Read more »
The coronavirus is leading Iranians to question the relationship between state and religion, putting the theocratic state in “an unusual and awkward position“, observers suggest. The Islamic Republic had to… Read more »
The European Union decided on Monday to extend restrictive measures imposed against Iran to last for an additional year until April 13, 2020, due to “serious human rights violations”… Read more »
The global campaign to free Iranian human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh is gathering momentum, as a regime crackdown fails to silence protests. More than 600,000 have signed a petition calling… Read more »
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei is doubling down on his regime’s policies of persecution, power projection and terror by appointing hard-line loyalists in a bid to ensure that critical state institutions remain… Read more »