Azeri protests highlight political risks of oil price fall
Azerbaijan is to impose a 20 per cent tax on taking money out of the country, as the oil-dependent government scrambles to respond to a currency collapse that has triggered… Read more »
Category: Human rights
‘Iranian Spring’ or hard-liners consolidating power?
Two Iranian poets who face lashings and prison sentences have fled Iran in a rare escape for local artists and activists ensnared in an ongoing crackdown on expression in… Read more »
Civil resistance in the Arab Spring: what went wrong?
The overriding lesson of the abortive Arab Spring is that getting rid of a dictatorial and corrupt ruler is not enough. Building democratic institutions, and restoring confidence in a flawed… Read more »
The Algerian Conundrum: Authoritarian State, Democratic Society
Algeria is facing deepening domestic uncertainty as collapsing oil revenues and tensions across the region threaten its hard-won stability. Adding to the concern are questions about the ability of the… Read more »
The Chavismo Files
Following the recent shift in the Venezuelan National Assembly it is sensible to go back and examine the legacy Hugo Chavez and his acolytes that steered Venezuela to the edge… Read more »
China’s leaders reveal their fears
Once admired by authoritarian governments elsewhere, not to mention some commentators in the West, for its canny balancing of free markets and party control, China’s style of leadership may be… Read more »
Tunisia ‘headed in wrong direction’, poll finds
At least 10 senior leaders quit Tunisia’s ruling party on Wednesday as a wave of resignations in a dispute over the role of the president’s son continued to sap… Read more »
Is Poland a failing democracy?
Poland’s new right-wing government faces international demands to roll back radical changes to the country’s institutions, but the odds that it will suffer any serious punishment from Brussels are close to zero, analyst Jan Cienski… Read more »
China steps up crackdown on civil society, rights advocates
Chinese authorities have formally arrested China‘s most prominent woman human rights lawyer, Wang Yu, accusing her of subversion, as part of a crackdown on activists who have helped people fight… Read more »
Cuba: still condemned to silence
Dissident artists are no better off post-Fidel, and renewed relations with the US haven’t helped as many hoped or claimed they would, Ryan McChrystal writes for Index on Censorship: The… Read more »