Category: Dissidents

Enough is Enough: Iranian Kurds Running Out of Patience

     

Two decades after a ceasefire, Kurdish fighters have resumed armed action in Iran, The London Times reports (subscription required). The result has been scores of deaths, cross-border artillery barrages into… Read more »

Government specter hovers over foreign NGOs in China

     

  The European Union should press China to end its crackdown on civil society and peaceful dissent, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude… Read more »

A year on from JCPOA, Iran views civil society as security threat

     

To thwart widespread expectations that more open relations with the West would follow the signing of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program last year, Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly warned… Read more »

Egypt’s dubious security harvest

     

  One of the main motivations behind Egypt’s 2013 military coup was to counter potential violence and terrorism. Yet one of its main upshots is a surge in violence and… Read more »

China’s Lhasa Consensus ‘can’t hide the rot underneath’

     

  China last week held a two-day Tibet Development Forum in Lhasa attended by 130 people from 30 countries and organized by the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department, VOA’s Yeshi Dorje… Read more »

Elie Wiesel stood for solidarity, not neutrality

     

  “We must always take sides,” said Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who passed away last week. “Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence… Read more »

Cuba ‘open for business’, closed to dissent

     

Cuba may be open for business, but it remains closed to dissent, according to a retired career American diplomat. “Despite President Obama’s best intentions, no improvement on the human rights… Read more »

Russia opens first criminal case under ‘foreign agent’ law

     

Russian authorities have launched their first criminal case against a rights activist for failing to comply with Moscow’s controversial “foreign agent” law, the activist told AFP on Tuesday: Valentina Cherevatenko,… Read more »

Push back against the tyrants: how to counter authoritarian assault on civil society

     

With rising awareness that simply holding elections does not a democracy make, investments in civil society are central to democracy promotion—helping to provide the education, information, and accountability without which… Read more »