Category: Dictatorships

Stand with North Korean victims

     

The South Korean government should re-engage on promoting accountability for human rights abuses in North Korea, according to a coalition of rights-oriented groups, including partners of the National Endowment for… Read more »

How democratic Taiwan outperformed authoritarian China on coronavirus outbreak

     

Taiwan’s example proves that the free flow of information is the best treatment for the coronavirus outbreak, analyst Victor (Lin) Pu writes for The Diplomat:  …..Even though Taiwan has not… Read more »

Russia and China: Axis of revisionists?

     

China and Russia are revisionist powers in as much as they share a commitment to creating a “post-West” global order which takes their interests into account and is conducive to… Read more »

Mubarak’s legacy – Arab Spring’s failure?

     

Hosni Mubarak, the autocratic ruler of Egypt whose nearly 30 years in power came to an abrupt, bloody climax in 2011 after a popular revolt swept across the Arab world,… Read more »

Russian activist sues on 5th anniversary of Nemtsov assassination

     

Three years ago, in February 2017, Vladimir Kara-Murza was rushed to a Moscow hospital, where he suffered massive organ failure, forcing doctors to place the Russian democracy activist on a… Read more »

China launches counteroffensive in the war of ideas

     

For China’s one party-state, the West’s promotion of liberal democracy is part of an ideological struggle led by an adversary that is still vastly superior, a situation that Chinese strategists… Read more »

R.I.P. Vietnamese dissident Nobel Prize nominee Thich Quang Do

     

Thich Quang Do, a dissident Buddhist monk who has effectively been under house arrest since 2003 and was nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize, has died. Head of… Read more »

Iran’s regime ‘facing fundamental test of legitimacy’

     

Iranians voted for a new parliament Friday, with turnout seen as a key measure of support for Iran’s leadership as sanctions weigh on the economy and U.S. pressure isolates the… Read more »

The ‘Great Online Convergence’: Digital authoritarianism comes to democracies?

     

  Russian civil society continues to dismantle pro-Kremlin disinformation, using both laughter and journalistic investigations. February has been a good month for those Russians who want to push back against pro-Kremlin… Read more »

China’s ‘biological Chernobyl’ exposes absurdities of autocracy

     

The death of Li Wenliang has shaken China like an earthquake. He was a young doctor who was reprimanded by Chinese police for alerting colleagues to a new virus that has… Read more »