Category: freedom of assembly

As Cuba’s dissident crackdown peaks, Obama trip ‘could be a subversive moment’

     

  Even some supporters of President Barack Obama’s moves to strengthen relations with Cuba are questioning the timing of his planned visit to the Communist island next month, after arrests… Read more »

Cambodia: ‘old-style politics in a new society’

     

For 30 years, Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge fighter, has wielded power through a combination of threats, clever deal-making and sheer willpower. And for most of that… Read more »

‘Political activity’ an existential issue in Russia

     

Defining “political activity” may seem like an academic exercise, but in Russia, it is an existential one, notes Tanya Lokshina, Russia program director at Human Rights Watch. The definition is… Read more »

Obama visit must not boost Cuba’s neo-Castroism

     

Communist-governed Cuba imports more than two-thirds of its food, despite having rich farmland and hundreds of urban farms sprouting up in old parking lots, rooftops, or other small plots of… Read more »

Xi’s new ‘core’ leader status highlights China’s power struggle

     

China’s president, Xi Jinping, has already grasped more power more quickly than his two recent predecessors, and he has shown a taste for audacious decisions and a loathing for dissent…. Read more »

Quiet consensus against Palestinian elections

     

It’s rare these days to find anything that Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the U.S. and Israel agree on. And yet when it comes to elections there is a  choosing their… Read more »

Argentina’s Macri: taking a lead, making a difference

     

Argentina has gone further than other Latin American states to snub Venezuela’s Chavista establishment over its violations of human rights and democracy, notes analyst Mac Margolis: Recently elected President Mauricio… Read more »

Elections highlight ‘Struggle for the Soul of Iran’

     

Iran has excluded Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the founder of the Islamic republic and a cleric with ties to reformist politicians, from contesting elections to the country’s powerful Assembly of… Read more »

‘Politics of fear’ threatens rights, prompts civil society ‘choke-out’

     

  The politics of fear led to a global roll-back of human rights and a great civil society choke-out during 2015, according to the 659-page World Report 2016 from Human… Read more »

Fearing social instability, China waging ‘lawfare’ on NGOs

     

China’s Communist authorities are intensifying a crackdown on dissent, civil society and growing labor unrest, reflecting the ruling party’s concern that economic restructuring and dislocation will “threaten social stability.” “If… Read more »