Category: Human rights

Political persecution & divided opposition gives Maduro the upper hand — as Venezuela’s people starve

     

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s regime has hunkered down, betting that it can outlast its domestic and foreign opponents. For the moment, at least, it seems to have the upper hand…. Read more »

El Testigo: Colombia’s FARC revive dream of bringing down democracy?

     

Colombia will increase protection for political candidates running in October’s local and regional elections after the murders of seven aspirants, said President Ivan Duque. The killings have sparked renewed calls for… Read more »

China ‘in danger of losing its grip’ over Tibet and Xinjiang

     

China is in danger of losing its grip over Tibet and Xinjiang and needs a radical reset of its ethnic policies, experts suggest. In September last year, Shohret Hoshur, a… Read more »

Citizen K: Putin’s nightmare? The ballot box

     

By any measure, the decline of Putinism is indisputable. It was best captured by a poll conducted in May by the government-run Public Opinion Center, which showed that public trust… Read more »

Why post-Mugabe Zimbabwe ‘remains mired in misery’

     

Zimbabwe’s state security agencies are suspected to have been involved in incidents that have targeted scores of opposition supporters, rights activists and even comedians who poke fun at political leaders…. Read more »

“Iron curtain of information” descending on Cuba

     

Some 14 Cuban non-governmental organizations* have declared that a new “iron curtain of information” is descending that further censors access to the internet, and restricts the flow of information. The… Read more »

China’s rights abuses in Xinjiang a ‘bellwether for a shifting global order’

     

Recent events have stoked alarm among the sizeable Uighur diaspora in Turkey that the country is no longer the haven it has been for decades, The Financial Times reports: Turkey… Read more »

Another Tiananmen? Alarming echoes of 1989 in Hong Kong protests

     

An estimated 1.7 million people took part in a peaceful pro-democracy protest (NYT/CFR) in the city center yesterday, the second-largest demonstration since the protest movement began more than two months… Read more »

Hong Kong: Why China’s propagandists peddle ‘black-hands’ myth

     

Since he took power seven years ago, President Xi Jinping has faced a growing din of foreign condemnation over his government’s human rights record, a trade war that has sapped… Read more »

Two scenarios for Venezuela as political stand-off accelerates economic implosion

     

The United States will bar two Venezuelan officials accused of human rights violations from traveling to the U.S. in its latest action to pressure Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro into stepping… Read more »