Author Archives: DemDigest

Arab Spring hopes ‘being revived across North Africa’?

     

In Sudan, tens of thousands of demonstrators are sitting in to demand the ouster of their longtime ruler. In Algeria, millions of protesters forced out their own octogenarian leader last week…. Read more »

Don’t ‘green light’ Egypt’s repression

     

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to the White House on April 9, 2019 comes at a time when his government has been stifling dissent before a planned constitutional referendum that… Read more »

‘Revolt against virtue’ fuels populist resurgence?

     

  The assumption of virtue among those who count themselves as progressive may help to explain the popularity of right-wing agitators, as well as the link between anti-immigrant sentiment and… Read more »

Downplaying Islamism, regime aims to demobilize Iran’s ‘underground but still vibrant’ civil society

     

  The European Union decided on Monday to extend restrictive measures imposed against Iran to last for an additional year until April 13, 2020, due to “serious human rights violations”… Read more »

China’s foreign interference exposed – yet again

     

Beijing agents pressured two Chinese-Australian authors to provide information about a secret Canberra inquiry into Chinese meddling in domestic politics, local media reported Monday: Yang Jun, a novelist and democracy… Read more »

Anti-government protests in Montenegro, Serbia and Albania prompt talk of ‘Balkan Spring’

     

It all started with a video posted on social media: a secret recording from 2016 that appears to show a well-known local tycoon hand over an envelope containing bundles of cash… Read more »

India’s democracy: cause to be ‘resolutely optimistic’?

     

Recent events in India have provided good reasons to worry for those who admire the country’s secular political traditions and cherish its democratic freedoms, the FT’s Victor Mallet writes in… Read more »

Regime crackdown fails to silence Iran protests

     

The global campaign to free Iranian human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh is gathering momentum, as a regime crackdown fails to silence protests. More than 600,000 have signed a petition calling… Read more »