Search Results for: Dissident

Iran’s election wasn’t about moderation or democracy

     

The elections in Iran confirm that the Syrian crisis has taught Iranians who are otherwise eager for change a few lessons, Harvard University researcher Amir Mahdavi writes for The Washington… Read more »

US envoy condemns Cuba rights record: Obama playing a long game

     

Deputy US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today condemned a surge in arrests of activists in Cuba, three weeks before President Barack Obama’s historic trip to the Communist-ruled island: Addressing… Read more »

Iran election underscores rejection of hardliners

     

President Hassan Rouhani of Iran and his allies appeared Monday to have made strong gains in two national elections, the first to be held since Tehran completed a sweeping nuclear deal with… Read more »

Iran poll balances ‘external loosening’ with ‘internal stiffening’

     

Iranians headed to the polls Friday in elections made easy for conservatives after sweeping bans that left many pro-reform candidates off the ballots, adding further political pressures on Hassan Rouhani,… Read more »

North Korea’s ‘fear society’: why human rights must come first

     

North Korea is the world’s most oppressive example of what former Soviet dissident, Natan Sharansky, called a “fear society,” according to Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy. … Read more »

U.S.-ASEAN summit needs more than symbolism

     

  Human rights and democracy advocates are calling on President Barack Obama to use the occasion of this week’s U.S.-ASEAN summit at California’s Sunnylands retreat to publicly raise concerns about… 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 »

Bleak prospects for Putinism – and Russian democracy

     

Russian President Vladimir Putin used to seem invincible. Today, he and his regime look enervated, confused, and desperate. Increasingly, both Russian and Western commentators suggest that Russia may be on… Read more »

Latin America: no sympathy for Venezuela’s Chavistas

     

When Venezuela’s head of state arrived in Quito, Ecuador, last week for the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States summit, his pitch was almost unrecognizable. Gone were the encomiums… Read more »