Blog Post Apr 10, 2023 Red-Tagging in the Philippines: A License to Kill February 2023 marked three years in prison for Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a 24-year-old Philippine community journalist and executive director of the independent news website, Eastern Vista. In 2020, the Philippine government accused her of illegally possessing firearms and explosives; Cumpio was reportedly denied “the right to present evidence and prove the utter falsehoods against her.”
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: 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.
Blog Post Mar 12, 2023 Standing Against Digital Dictatorships We are living in a time of unprecedented technological advances and ever-growing access to cyberspaces, impacting multiple aspects of our daily life.
Blog Post Feb 20, 2023 This World Day of Social Justice, Stand with Activists Standing Up to Authoritarianism Every year, on Feb. 20, the international community commemorates the World Day of Social Justice. First celebrated in 2007, the United Nations established this day with a vision of a “society for all,” in which “all” enjoy equal economic, political, and social rights and opportunities.
Blog Post Jan 23, 2023 Bolivia’s Jailing Opposition Leaders on Absurd ‘Terrorism’ Charges A Dec. 28 police operation involving over 40 heavily armed officers — most of them in plain clothes and wearing masks — violently arrested Luis Fernando Camacho, one of Bolivia’s most important opposition leaders and governor of the region with the country’s largest city, and swiftly moved him to La Paz in a military helicopter.
Blog Post Jan 17, 2023 HRF’s Recommended Reads for 2023 Today, in the words of Human Rights Foundation (HRF) Board Chairman Garry Kasparov, we are witnessing “the frontline of the total war between freedom and tyranny.”
Blog Post Jan 11, 2023 Trials in Absentia: Lukashenko’s Latest Act of Repression The anti-government protests in Belarus over the last two years may have died down, but the country remains marred by violent repression and the clamping down on dissidents.
Announcement Dec 10, 2022 At HRF, Every Day is International Human Rights Day Today, December 10, marks International Human Rights Day.
Blog Post Dec 2, 2022 Press Freedom: A Right, Yet Democratic Luxury To write freely and openly is a luxury. Around the world, in authoritarian regimes, the luxury of writing — to report on what you see, hear, and think — is virtually nonexistent. The thirst for truth and knowledge, and to write on it, is there. But dictatorships won’t allow such a luxury.
Publication Nov 29, 2022 ‘Chinese Banksy’ hits Miami streets An artist from China launched a five-part collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Tuesday that use the 2022 Winter Olympics as imagery to protest China’s oppression, lack of transparency regarding COVID-19 and the dismantling of democracy in Hong Kong, according to the dedicated site for the collection.
Blog Post Nov 16, 2022 Enforced Disappearances: The Silenced Truths of Burma The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) explores the topic of enforced disappearances in a series of blog posts to draw much-needed attention to this forgotten crime.
Blog Post Sep 15, 2022 The Time for Democracy is Now On this International Day of Democracy, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) calls on the international community to support peaceful dissidents and human rights defenders working to promote and protect human rights in countries under authoritarian rule.
Blog Post Aug 30, 2022 No Girl Left Behind: A Year of HRF’s Commitment to the People of Afghanistan Around this time last year, amid the waning summer and an otherwise hopeful moment of revival in the post-pandemic year, the world witnessed a cataclysmic event: the United States’ formal military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Blog Post Aug 30, 2022 Enforced Disappearances: A Crime Without a Trace Today, August 30th is the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.
Press Release Aug 24, 2022 HRF to Saudi Arabia: Let American Mother & Daughter Return Home The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) calls on Saudi Arabia to repeal its oppressive male guardianship laws and to allow women to exercise basic civil rights without the permission of their male guardians.
Blog Post Jul 30, 2022 Authoritarianism Lies at the Heart of Human Trafficking On this World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, there are over 24.9 million people subject to human trafficking, or modern slavery.
Press Release Jul 27, 2022 Carine Kanimba & John Scott-Railton to Testify Before U.S. Congress Today, Oslo Freedom Forum community members Carine Kanimba, daughter of jailed Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina, and John Scott-Railton, a renowned cybersecurity expert and Senior Researcher at The Citizen Lab, will be testifying in an public hearing before the U.S. House Intelligence Committee.
