Azerbaijani authorities are using spurious drug charges to pursue long prison sentences against two youth activists. The charges apparently are in retaliation for painting graffiti on a monument. The authorities… Read more »
Today, May 12, marks the 40th anniversary of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human rights organization created to monitor the Soviet Union’s compliance with the Helsinki Accords, notes Natan… Read more »
There are lessons for Cuba in “Reflections on Unfinished Revolutions,” a report by the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, which examines the state of democracy in Eastern Europe 25 years after… Read more »
When Iran makes headlines, it is usually as a result of its conflicts with other countries, notes analyst Ervand Abrahamian. Far less attention is paid to Iran’s conflicts with itself, which are… Read more »
Fidel’s brother [Raul Castro] has clearly been thinking ahead in a way the aging Fidelistas in the Cuban Communist Party have not, notes Alma Guillermoprieto. He may be trying… Read more »
Thich Quang Do, the Patriarch of Vietnam’s Unified Buddhist Church (left), has called on U.S. president Barack Obama to use his forthcoming trip to the Communist state to highlight continuing… Read more »
China’s new anti-NGO law is evidence of a xenophobic shift in the country’s politics, an anti-foreign turn driven by several related trends, The Wall Street Journal notes: First, President Xi Jinping has… Read more »
The public outcry over the rape and murder of six-year-old Afghan refugee Setayesh Ghoreishi (left) demonstrates how social media has allowed Iran’s civil society to hold accountable hardliners in the… Read more »
More than a month after ordinary Cubans jubilantly welcomed President Barack Obama to Havana, the Communist government is finding it hard to dampen the afterglow, AP reports: But few people… Read more »
India has declined to issue visas to two Chinese activists hoping to attend a conference on promoting democracy, days after it revoked a visa for an exiled ethnic Uighur leader… Read more »