Category: freedom of association

No sign of reform, transparency in Castros’ Cuba

     

Critics of President Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Cuba are claiming vindication this week as the island nation’s Communist Party hard-liners — cheered on by an 89-year-old Fidel Castro — moved… Read more »

Egypt’s hollowed-out civil society

     

Authoritarian regimes are, in general, averse to a strong civil society. Egypt is no exception, notes Gamal Eid (left), an Egyptian lawyer and the director of the Arabic Network for… Read more »

Cuba minister calls Obama trip ‘an attack’ as Communists defend ideology

     

U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Communist-led Cuba was an “attack” on its history and culture aimed at misleading a new business class, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on Monday,… Read more »

Chavista courts eroding Venezuela’s democracy

     

Venezuela’s courts — packed by leftist loyalists of Nicolás Maduro only days before they handed over power — have fiercely chipped away at the new legislature’s efforts, leaving some here wondering… Read more »

Video shows ‘Putin’s New Praetorians’ training to suppress a Moscow Maidan

     

On April 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would develop a national guard to fight terrorism and crime, but a recently released video (above) from Open Russia purports to show the guard training to… Read more »

Venezuela’s failed state: is there light at the end of the tunnel?

     

“Widespread Blackouts Loom As Venezuela’s Dams Run out of Water” was the ominous headline from the PanAm Post on March 16. And even though the government blames El Niño, engineers apparently have… Read more »

Russian rights defender receives political asylum

     

Russian rights defender Nadezhda Kutepova has received political asylum in France, RFE/RL reports: Kutepova, the director of the Planeta Nadezhd (A Planet of Hope) nongovernmental organization, left for France in… Read more »

Egypt’s civil society crackdown: rights defenders at risk of prosecution

     

Fourteen global human rights groups today urged Egypt to halt a renewed crackdown on civil society and rights defenders. The demand came as President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a cabinet… Read more »

Cubama: a ‘new day’ or a ‘slap in the face’ for U.S.-Cuba relations

     

Change is coming to Cuba, President Barack Obama told his Cuban counterpart today, after  Raul Castro called on the U.S. to lift longstanding trade and other restrictions as part of… Read more »

Cubama: what President Obama should say about Cuba

     

  Cuba has released four dissidents and put them on a plane to the U.S. just days before President Barack Obama’s historic trip to the island as part of the rapprochement with President… Read more »