Blog Post Jul 10, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #80 In the wake of the latest conflict with Israel, Iran has orchestrated a domestic crackdown, detaining more than 1,000 people, killing dozens, and targeting minority communities and activists.
Blog Post Jul 3, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #79 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police and pro-government goons attacked peaceful demonstrators and violently suppressed June 25 marches, which marked the anniversary of last year’s anti-tax bill protests and honored the memory of at least 60 people killed then.
Blog Post Jul 1, 2025 HRF’s AI and Individual Rights Newsletter #2 A few weeks ago, I visited Norway as part of the 17th annual Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF), a gathering affectionately known as “Davos for dissidents,” which once again brought together an inspiring constellation of human rights defenders, philanthropists, and tech innovators from across the globe.
Blog Post Jun 26, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #78 Iran’s largest digital asset exchange, Nobitex, was hit by a cyberattack in which $90 million in digital assets were intentionally drained and destroyed.
Blog Post Jun 19, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #77 We begin this week in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele’s ruling party officially passed a sweeping “foreign agents” law.
Blog Post Jun 12, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #76 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police detained Rose Njeri, a software developer and mother of two, for building a website that enables Kenyans to flag causes and email parliament concerning an unpopular tax bill that threatens to raise the cost of living in an already inflation-sticky economy.
Blog Post May 22, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #75 Today, we begin in China, where the central bank injected $138 billion into the economy and expanded the money supply by 12.5% year-over-year.
Blog Post May 21, 2025 HRF’s AI and Individual Rights Newsletter #1 In this first edition, I’ll dive into China’s methods for harvesting data from Large Language Models (LLMs aka AI chat bots) and look at the global impact of this activity while also enclosing a few notes on other global news — some scary, some exciting.
Blog Post May 15, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #74 We bring news from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group is imposing immense taxes on the local economy, merchants, and aid groups to fund its insurgency as it seeks to govern seized regions of the Eastern Congo.
Blog Post May 8, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #73 This week, we bring reports from Bangladesh, where the interim government instructed the central bank to halt the printing of old banknotes featuring Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh.
Blog Post May 2, 2025 Responsible Finance: Why Political Systems Should Matter to Investors International trade and investment reshaped the world for the better. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, economic openness has reduced poverty on a global scale, brought prosperity to nations from Poland to South Korea, and improved quality of life for hundreds of millions.
Blog Post May 1, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #72 This week, we bring pressing news from Belarus, where the regime’s central bank is preparing to launch its central bank digital currency in close collaboration with Russia by the end of 2026.
Blog Post Apr 24, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #71 In Georgia, mere weeks after freezing the bank accounts of five NGOs supporting pro-democracy movements, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed a new law banning foreign organizations from providing grants to local groups without regime approval.
Blog Post Apr 17, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #70 This week’s headlines expose the lengths authoritarian regimes go to perpetuate the financial power that preserves their rule, often going so far as to bend, break, and rewrite the rules of money itself.
Blog Post Apr 10, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #69 Today, HRF takes part in the launch of the Bitcoin Humanitarian Alliance in London, where a dozen human rights and aid groups will convene with policymakers, media, finance professionals, and technologists at the Frontline Club to explain how they are using Bitcoin in their work in the field.
Blog Post Apr 2, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom #68 Georgian officials froze the bank accounts of five nonprofit organizations that provide financial and legal support to detained protesters.
Blog Post Mar 27, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #67 Turkey’s currency plunged to a record low after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rivals.
Blog Post Mar 20, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #66 In Thailand, the government announced a third digital cash handout to “stimulate the economy and drive technological adoption.”
Blog Post Mar 17, 2025 Broad Daylight How common is the corruption of public officials in the U.S.? Ben Freeman on what America’s “authoritarian friends” from the Persian Gulf are doing in Washington, D.C.
Blog Post Mar 13, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #65 In Iran, lawmakers impeached the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, following the Iranian rial’s rapid collapse, with the currency plunging to 1 million per dollar.
