Category: Democracy Assistance and Promotion

Russia: ‘Big Brother’ Law Harms Security, Rights

     

Russia’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation is reminiscent of Soviet-era surveillance and will also likely contribute to crippling the Russian economy, notes Anna Borshchevskaya, an Ira Weiner fellow at The Washington Institute… Read more »

Libyans ‘winning the battle’ against Islamic State

     

While the so-called Islamic State is losing ground across Libya, divisions among various Libyan factions make it difficult for the unity government to convert the group’s defeat into legitimacy, Carnegie… Read more »

Government specter hovers over foreign NGOs in China

     

  The European Union should press China to end its crackdown on civil society and peaceful dissent, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to European Commission President Jean-Claude… Read more »

A year on from JCPOA, Iran views civil society as security threat

     

To thwart widespread expectations that more open relations with the West would follow the signing of the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program last year, Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly warned… Read more »

China ‘waging ideological war’ against Western ideas, civil society

     

China’s Communist Party and its military are waging an ideological war against hostile Western ideas on the Internet. Through censorship, intimidation and repression, and with the help of an army… Read more »

Corruption could ‘send Ukraine back to Russia’?

     

  The European Union today announced plans to give Ukraine some 50 million euros (55 million dollars) to fight corruption. EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes… Read more »

The Fractious Path: Pakistan’s Democratic Transition

     

  Since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has oscillated between weak democratic governments and military dictatorships. In 2013, for the first time, there was a peaceful transfer of power from… Read more »

ISIS ‘metastasizing’ – losing territory and social media presence

     

  The Islamic State group lost 12% of the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria – an area the size of Ireland – in the first half of 2016,… Read more »

China’s Lhasa Consensus ‘can’t hide the rot underneath’

     

  China last week held a two-day Tibet Development Forum in Lhasa attended by 130 people from 30 countries and organized by the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department, VOA’s Yeshi Dorje… Read more »