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.
Blog Post Jan 8, 2025 Corruption Trails CBDC Projects in China, Nigeria, and Lebanon Central bankers have a corruption problem. Recently, Yao Qian, the former head of the People’s Bank of China’s research into central bank digital currency (CBDC), was removed from office and expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for engaging in corruption.
Blog Post Dec 19, 2024 Authoritarian incumbents claim most of 2024 elections across Africa More than 15 national elections took place across the African continent (including North Africa) in 2024.
Blog Post Dec 19, 2024 Legitimizing Aggression in Russia’s 2024 Vote Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia entered a period of profound political and economic change.
Blog Post Dec 19, 2024 Elections In Georgia: At the Crossroads between Russia and Europe Countries that once were democratic continued the descent into authoritarianism.
Blog Post Dec 18, 2024 Wear Your Values Holiday Gift Guide Wear Your Values aims to raise awareness about the human rights abuses worldwide that occur throughout the fashion industry’s supply chains.
Blog Post Dec 18, 2024 A Stolen Election and the Ongoing Struggle for Democracy In the days leading up to Venezuela’s July 28 elections, Venezuelans around the world were largely overcome by a sense of renewed, although fragile, faith in liberation.
Blog Post Dec 17, 2024 Elections in MENA: Youth as the Key to Change Sixty-five elections were held around the globe in 2024.
Blog Post Dec 16, 2024 How Elections in Asia Mirror Global Challenges to Democracy Sixty-five elections were held around the globe in 2024. What emerged from these polls was the realization that global democracy is at a critical juncture, especially with the disturbing trend of tyrants manipulating electoral systems to maintain their filthy grip on power.
Blog Post Dec 13, 2024 HRF Freedom Fellowship Spotlight: Samady Ou Born and raised in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Samady Ou was profoundly influenced by the experience of growing up under a dictatorship.
Blog Post Dec 8, 2020 Data Collection & Censorship in the Coronavirus Outbreak At the 2020 Oslo Freedom Forum, the Human Rights Foundation hosted a panel discussion about data collection and censorship as it relates to governmental responses to the coronavirus.
Blog Post Nov 27, 2024 Like, Tweet, & Torment: Maduro Weaponizes Popular Applications to Aid Election Theft Following Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election in which President Nicolás Maduro claimed victory over opposition candidate Edmundo González despite overwhelming data to the contrary — González received around 67% of the vote —thousands of Venezuelans have protested the results across the country.
Blog Post Nov 8, 2024 Election Watch Tunisia: Tunisia’s Democratic Dismantling Tunisian President Kais Saied won yet another election on Oct. 6, securing an overwhelming 90.7% of the vote, up from 73% since his previous win in 2019. His win, however, is anything but surprising, considering that he’s dismantled nearly all forms of democratic checks to his power.
Blog Post Nov 6, 2024 Exposing Aliyev’s Masquerade: The Illusion of Democracy Behind COP29 Next week, roughly 70,000 foreign guests are expected to flood into Baku for the most important climate forum of the year: COP29, the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Blog Post Oct 18, 2024 A History of Sports & Dictators, Part 4: Soviet Sports propaganda When Tsar Peter I — better known as Peter the Great — visited England in 1689, he arranged what has been called the “first international boxing match” in the garden of the nobleman’s home.
Blog Post Sep 9, 2024 El Salvador: The False Tradeoffs Between Security and Democracy El Salvador’s gang problem has long plagued its citizens, with violent territorial control by gangs leading to a reign of terror characterized by rampant extortion, high homicide rates, and destructive turf wars.
Blog Post Sep 6, 2024 A History of Sports & Dictators, Part 3: Post-WWII Soft Power Long before the inception of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, sports have been used to distract the masses, test foreign policies, thaw diplomatic tensions, and broadcast political and social messaging.
Blog Post Sep 4, 2024 The Survival of Kurdish Identity in Turkey The Kurds make up the world’s largest stateless population, with more than 30 million living in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; they make up a fifth of Turkey’s population. Like other indigenous populations in the post-World War I era in the Middle East, European diplomats decided the Kurds’ fate.
Blog Post Aug 19, 2024 The Role of Freedom Tech in Venezuela Venezuela grapples with fraudulent presidential elections, economic and financial collapse, widespread repression, and severe human rights abuses under dictator Nicolás Maduro, its brave activists continue searching for uncensorable solutions to combat systemic repression.
