Labor unrest surges in China
China’s ruling Communist Party is facing an upsurge in labor militancy and social unrest, notes China Digital Times: Amid an economic downturn and a plan to streamline the state-owned sector, the Chinese… Read more »
Tag: National Endowment for Democracy
Russian NGO sues state TV over espionage claims
A Russian environmental NGO targeted by Moscow’s foreign agent law and dogged by treason charges against its leader, is pushing a slander suit again a state broadcaster for saying it… Read more »
Azar Nafisi – finding her roots
Azar Nafisi is best known as the author of the national bestseller “Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books,” which electrified its readers with a compassionate and often harrowing… Read more »
Russians not fundamentally illiberal – unlike Putin
Contrary to some analysts’ suggestions that Russian culture and history have fostered a predisposition towards authoritarian rule, new research suggests otherwise. The evidence emerging from a cross-country comparison of attitudes… Read more »
Kosovo edging closer to anarchy?
Scenes of violence at Kosovo’s parliament during which opposition MPs released tear gas to prevent the election of a new president were “extremely worrying“, said the European Union: The protests… Read more »
Legal Restrictions on Thought & Expression: Pakistan, Egypt, Thailand, Bahrain – and Turkey
Turkey’s “strongman” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going the extra mile in his trajectory of authoritarianism by challenging a Constitutional Court ruling, effectively conflating freedom of expression with espionage,… Read more »
Pakistan ‘resolved to reverse tide of extremism’
The authorities in Pakistan were bracing for the possibility of violence and escalating protests on Monday after the execution of the man who killed Salmaan Taseer, a governor who had campaigned for… Read more »
Russia, Ukraine and the ‘surrealism of realism’
Before the war in Ukraine, respected Russia experts have long claimed that Russia had already become a “post-imperial” state and stressed that they saw no grounds for adversarial relations between… Read more »
Honoring Nemtsov, a call for action
Thousands of people marched in honor of slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov on February 27, one year after he was shot dead near the Kremlin. Five suspects have been charged… Read more »
Egypt’s civil society: two misperceptions
During a congressional hearing on the Obama administration’s FY17 budget request, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke briefly regarding the state of human rights in Egypt, expressing his concern over the… Read more »