Has Putin poisoned another critic?
The U.S. ambassador to Moscow says the United States is monitoring the condition of Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., a Kremlin critic who is in hospital with symptoms similar to those he… Read more »
Category: Dissidents
China: CCP’s survival strategy ‘exhausted’?
Some may dismiss Gao Zhisheng’s prediction of the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party as the wishful thinking of a persecuted dissident, says Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment… Read more »
The Enduring Significance of Charter 77
The Czech Republic’s successful transition from communism to democracy would not have been possible without the activists who provided a courageous voice in favor of political and intellectual freedom and… Read more »
Veteran Polish dissident braced for fresh battle
After years in jail as a dissident under communism, Adam Michnik took part in the groundbreaking 1989 Round Table talks that brought semi-free elections to Poland and helped bring down… Read more »
Azerbaijan abuse allegations mar high-profile trial
The Azerbaijan authorities should release 18 people, including a prominent religious scholar and a leading political opposition activist, who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to long prison sentences on January… Read more »
Nobel laureate Alexievich quits ‘shameful’ Russian PEN
Russian PEN has dismissed Svetlana Alexievich’s decision to leave the freedom of speech organisation, saying she cannot quit because she has never been a member – prompting the Nobel prize… Read more »
Amnesty demands urgent action for Cuban dissident ‘El Sexto’
Cuban graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado Machado (‘El Sexto’ – left) continues to be detained in a maximum-security prison, a month and a half after his arrest, Amnesty International reports. “El Sexto”,… Read more »
Cuba arrests prominent dissident
An outspoken critic of the Castro regime who was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom was arrested on Wednesday by Cuban authorities. Dr. Óscar Elias Biscet (far left) was… Read more »
Azerbaijan’s ‘Caviar Diplomacy’ exposed
Prominent Azerbaijani blogger Mehman Huseynov (left) whose efforts to expose high-level corruption have irked President Ilham Aliyev’s government has been detained and charged with disobeying the police, Radio Free Europe/Radio… Read more »
Iran’s ‘mythical moderate’: Rafsanjani blended economic liberalism, political authoritarianism
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (above, left) , who has died aged 82, was one of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a shrewd politician who many Iranians saw as… Read more »