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 14, 2025 How China Uses Financial Repression to Erase the Uyghur People Rushan Abbas has spent years fighting for the freedom of her people, the Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic group in the Uyghur Region, located in northwest China.
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 28, 2025 ‘It’s a hydra’ What can democracies do about autocratic interference? Josh Rudolph on the challenges of resistance and resiliency.
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 24, 2025 Enigmas What exactly is the problem here? Justin Callais on the ambiguities of corruption.
Blog Post Mar 21, 2025 Organized Crime Why do dictators keep disrupting so many other countries? Miranda Patrucić on what China and Russia are doing in neighboring nations, developing states, and the world’s most powerful democracies.
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.
Blog Post Mar 11, 2025 The Playbook: How Syria’s brutal Assad regime used football to maintain power Welcome to The Playbook, an explainer series from HRF’s Sports & Dictators program that explores the intersection of sports and politics in authoritarian regimes and decodes the disturbing narratives behind the games we love.
Blog Post Mar 6, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #64 In Nicaragua, the regime is increasingly cracking down on civil society, imposing new financial regulations on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that require them to disclose donors and report all financial transactions — further restricting their ability to operate independently.
Blog Post Feb 27, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #63 In Nigeria, financial officials are revising digital asset regulations to impose taxes on digital asset transactions on regulated exchanges.
Blog Post Feb 20, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #62 This week, we honor the loss of the late Alexei Navalny, whose bravery inspired millions of Russians to stand up against Vladimir Putin’s financial, political, and social repression.
Blog Post Feb 13, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #61 This week, we highlight how authoritarian regimes are manipulating digital assets. The Central African Republic launched a government-backed meme coin that crashed spectacularly within a day of launch as regime insiders cashed out for profits, leaving the public with worthless tokens.
Blog Post Feb 10, 2025 The Playbook: How Saudi Arabia uses tennis to present a facade of women’s reforms When Saudi Arabia hosted one of the most important events in professional women’s tennis, the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Finals, in November, it wasn’t, of course, without controversy. The New York Times put it this way:
Blog Post Feb 6, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #60 In India, the central bank has taken a significant step toward launching its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital rupee. In partnership with fintech firms Mobikwik and Cred, the digital rupee is now available to 180 million users through a new “e₹ wallet,” a CBDC wallet app designed for public use.
Blog Post Jan 31, 2025 The prize that matters for Swaziland In December, the Secretary of State honored prominent Swazi human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko with the Human Rights Defender Award.
