Blog Post Jan 4, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #5 We start 2024 with an exciting announcement: HRF granted $500,000 to 18 projects worldwide. Our Q4 gifts focused on global education, Bitcoin Core, mining decentralization, and projects that support freedom tech developers in closed societies.
Blog Post Dec 21, 2023 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #4 For this week’s Financial Freedom report, we cover currency devaluation in Argentina, Hong Kong’s National Police arresting individuals for donating to pro-democracy activists, and recent product launches helping make Bitcoin easy to send worldwide.
Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 The 2023 Dictators’ Playbook: Stripping Dissidents of Citizenship In 2023, emboldened tyrants from Central America to Eastern Europe engaged in more drastic and crueler forms of repression in order to stamp out any possible challenges to their rule. The dictatorial regimes of Belarus and Nicaragua, for example, have taken their repression across their own borders, stripping exiled dissidents of their citizenship.
Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 The 2023 Dictators’ Playbook: Crushing Revolutions In September 2022, Iran’s morality police detained 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for allegedly not wearing her hijab in accordance with the regime’s mandatory dress code. She was later killed in police custody, sparking a nationwide revolution.
Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 The 2023 Dictators’ Playbook: Sending Military Support Today, a staggering 5.7 billion people — 72% of the global population — live under the tyranny of an authoritarian regime. As they rise in numbers and strength, autocrats maintain a domestic and international hold with an all-too-similar playbook.
Blog Post Dec 14, 2023 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #3 This week’s Financial Freedom report covers everything from extreme inflation under regimes in Zimbabwe and Iran to a newly exposed vulnerability allowing tyrants to track mobile phone usage of their citizens to Bitcoin software updates putting more power in the hands of users worldwide.
Blog Post Nov 30, 2023 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #2 From Singapore pioneering the use of central bank digital currencies to staggering currency debasement in Cuba and Egypt, it is evident that governments worldwide continue to abuse their digital power.
Blog Post Nov 22, 2023 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #1 In this newsletter, HRF will provide useful stories and information to help us better understand the global impact of growing worldwide Bitcoin adoption.
Blog Post Aug 24, 2023 The Dictators Toolkit: Disguised Judicial Attacks Independent judges are a nightmare for would-be dictators. They have the immense power to overturn the abusive actions of creeping authoritarian regimes by acquitting dissidents of bogus charges, holding regime officials accountable, or upholding free and fair elections.
Blog Post Aug 11, 2023 Russia’s Influence in Mali Squeezed by Western sanctions — first in response to its illegal annexation of Crimea and then its subsequent invasion of Ukraine — Vladimir Putin’s regime has increasingly turned to new partnerships across Africa for greater global influence and economic lifelines.
Blog Post Aug 11, 2023 Russia’s Influence in the Central African Republic Squeezed by Western sanctions — first in response to its illegal annexation of Crimea and then its subsequent invasion of Ukraine — Vladimir Putin’s regime has increasingly turned to new partnerships across Africa for greater global influence and economic lifelines.
Blog Post Aug 11, 2023 Russia’s Influence in Sudan Squeezed by Western sanctions — first in response to its illegal annexation of Crimea and then its subsequent invasion of Ukraine — Vladimir Putin’s regime has increasingly turned to new partnerships across Africa for greater global influence and economic lifelines.
Blog Post Jul 31, 2023 Threats Against Journalists in Asia: Online Trolling and Jailing of Reporters A free and independent press is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. It allows citizens to access information and hold their leaders accountable.
Blog Post Jul 31, 2023 Threats Against Journalists in Latin America: Harassment, Prison, and Forced Exile A free and independent press is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. It allows citizens to access information and hold their leaders accountable.
Blog Post Jul 28, 2023 Freedom in Focus: HRF Summer Newsletter In this edition of Freedom in Focus, we are excited to share our biggest wins and achievements over the last few months.
Blog Post Apr 7, 2023 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Activists Push Back After news broke that a young Egyptian, Khaled Saeed, had been tortured and killed by police in June 2010, Wael Ghonim created the Facebook page, “We are all Khaled Saeed.”
Blog Post Apr 7, 2023 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Transnational Repression in the Digital Age A typical move in the dictator’s handbook is not only oppressing those within the country but silencing voices of dissent outside the country. And technology has only made it easier.
Blog Post Apr 7, 2023 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Authoritarian Troll Farms “They were attacking him basically every single day, threatening him, trying to silence him. So Jamal felt the whole country was against him – and that was hurting. He said sometimes ‘I feel like I don’t want to talk about anything, I don’t want to expose my opinion.’ “
Blog Post Apr 7, 2023 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Repression by Proxy Authoritarian regimes have been increasingly creative in developing ways to control the digital space and the flow of information. Aside from jailing people for their tweets, monitoring accounts that uncover a regime’s misdeeds, and siccing cyber trolls on dissidents, they have also discovered the convenience of using intermediaries to censor. The message is straightforward: “Help us control social media or lose your business.” It is to repress by means of a proxy.
Blog Post Apr 7, 2023 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Exposing Atrocities on Social Media Using photos and videos in criminal trials isn’t a recent phenomenon. The Nuremberg trials were the first, using images of Nazi concentration camps to bring perpetrators to justice. Today, social media has changed the game entirely.
