Category: Human rights

Disgust over corruption threatens Tunisia’s trajectory, MENA stability

     

Armed with banners, placards and cigarettes, dozens of protesters gathered in the Tunisian capital Tunis on Sunday for the first-ever demonstration of its kind – the right not to fast for Ramadan. Popular perceptions… Read more »

Democracies must not fall for terrorism’s ‘strategy of provocation’

     

How can democracies combat terrorism without undermining liberal democratic norms and institutions? Following the terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, British Prime Minister Theresa May has proposed restricting internet freedom… Read more »

Pro-democracy foreign policy reconciles interests and values

     

In the current global context of rising authoritarianism (left) and closing civic space, consistent omission of values in foreign policy equals public abandonment of moral purpose, argues Kate Bateman, a… Read more »

Democratic renewal will help the Free World ‘out of its defensive crouch’

     

Liberal democrats need to go on the offensive to counter the external authoritarians and internal illiberal forces undermining democratic institutions and liberal values, says a prominent commentator. Ideas have power,… Read more »

Principled Realism ‘ideologically handicapped’ in confronting Iran

     

  “Principled Realism” is no more likely than realpolitik to check Tehran’s clerical regime where it matters most, in Syria, according to a leading analyst. Such an approach “appears ideologically… Read more »

Vietnam’s hackers targeting foreign firms with anti-dissident tactics

     

A Vietnamese group known as OceanLotus is targeting foreign companies, using tactics similar to those in attacks against dissidents, journalists and governments at odds with the country, The New York… Read more »

‘Principled realism’ sacrificing human rights, democracy in ‘value-neutral transactions’?

     

Does a foreign policy of “principled realism” necessarily entail sidelining human rights concerns and offering few critiques of authoritarian leaders’ records on democracy, the rule of law and protecting essential… Read more »

To fight modern slavery, human rights come first

     

In the next month the State Department will issue the 2017 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. This report, which ranks virtually every country in the world on their efforts to combat… Read more »

Hungary ‘copying Russia’ by targeting university?

     

As an American scholar of Soviet history, Charles D. Shaw thought he understood authoritarianism before he moved to Hungary in 2015 to teach at Central European University, the New York Times reports: “Coming from… Read more »

Inside Chechnya’s ‘anti-gay pogrom’

     

Using classic KGB tactics, Chechen security officers are targeting and torturing gay men, the New York Times reports: Novaya Gazeta, an opposition newspaper, first reported the pogrom, saying that at least 100… Read more »