Zhou Shifeng sentence highlights China’s crackdown on dissent
A court in China jailed a prominent human rights lawyer for seven years on Thursday for subverting the government, state media said, the latest in a string of convictions… Read more »
Search Results for: Civil Society
Leveraging Youth and Technology for Governance Reforms
On August 12th, people around the world will celebrate International Youth Day, marking the 17th year the United Nations has designated a day to celebrate and reflect upon the enormous potential… Read more »
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 »
Putin nemesis planning post-Putin Russia
Most post-Communist countries have made a transition to some form of democratic rule, notes Masha Gessen. Not coincidentally, most of them had a memory of such institutions to build on,… 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 »
JCPOA failed to open up economic and political space within Iran
Activist Iyad el-Baghdadi had initially hoped that the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would give Iran’s entrepreneurs, reformists, and civil society at large more breathing space:… Read more »
Zimbabwe paralyzed by strike over corruption, economic collapse
Zimbabwe police fired warning shots and teargas as a protest strike against President Robert Mugabe’s economic policies gripped the country on Wednesday, closing businesses and crippling public transport, AFP… Read more »
‘A crime against humanity’ – Venezuela on the edge
It’s been almost two years now since the renowned Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann caused a stir in his native Venezuela by posing an uncomfortable question, Bloomberg reports: Why does a… Read more »