Blog Post Mar 8, 2024 Election Watch: Pakistan’s Contentious Elections On Thursday, Feb. 8, Pakistan, a country of 250 million people — the fifth most populous globally — hit the polls for its 12th general election. It came amid growing political and economic instability and a security crisis.
Blog Post Feb 28, 2024 The Legacy of the EDSA People Power Revolution Philippines President “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has been busy lately cozying up to the West, much to the chagrin of his pro-Beijing predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
Blog Post Feb 9, 2024 A History of Sports and Dictators, Part 1: From Ramses II to Rome’s Bread & Circuses In the Olympic Games of 416, Athenian statesman and military general Alcibiades fielded seven teams in one of the most prestigious Olympic events, the four-horse chariot race known as the quadriga.
Blog Post Feb 1, 2024 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #9 This past week, Egyptians were told to put up with soaring inflation, while we saw Kazakhstan’s financial suppression of journalists and Pakistan’s continued rise in Bitcoin adoption.
Blog Post Feb 1, 2024 Burma’s Third Coup Anniversary Three years ago today, the Burmese military junta, led by Min Aung Hlaing, seized power from the democratically elected government in a coup.
Blog Post Jan 29, 2024 Bloody January Remembered In January 2022, citizens in the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan experienced the most violent event in their recent history.
Blog Post Jan 25, 2024 The Aliyev Regime’s Role in the Ethnic Cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians On Sept. 19, Stepanakert, the capital of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, came under a barrage of bombs and artillery fire. Azerbaijan announced the beginning of an “anti-terrorist campaign,” signifying Baku’s final attempt to push ethnic Armenians out of the enclave and reclaim control over its territory.
Blog Post Jan 19, 2024 Shadows of Support: Japan’s Ties with Burma’s Military Junta In February 2021, the Burmese military junta staged a coup against the democratically elected government of the National League for Democracy Party (NLD) and invalidated the results of the November 2020 general election.
Blog Post Jan 15, 2024 Beyond Borders: China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs In March, Turkish police raided a bookstore in Istanbul, accusing it of selling copies of Uyghur books banned by the Chinese regime without proper copyright.
Blog Post Jan 12, 2024 Fueling Ambition: Aramco’s pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s sports expansion In November 2023, news broke that Aramco—Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil and energy giant—was set to complete a “significant sponsorship” deal with FIFA that would make it the football governing body’s biggest sponsor over the coming decade.
Blog Post Jan 10, 2024 HRF’s 2024 Recommended Reads As we enter a new year, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) is pleased to present a selection of books from our community that might help spark your next big idea in 2024.
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 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 17, 2023 Worldconned: How China Co-Opted Sci-Fi’s Crown Jewel Amidst the Uyghur Genocide Last month, Chengdu, China hosted the 81st World Science Fiction Convention. Known as Worldcon, this annual convention is the site of the prestigious Hugo Awards—sci-fi’s equivalent to the Oscars.
Blog Post Oct 24, 2023 The Silent Chains of Saudi Arabia: My Fight for My Daughter and Our Freedom In 2011, while working in Tunisia, my life completely changed. I witnessed the start of the Arab Spring and fall of Tunisia’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, due to a popular uprising against injustice.
Blog Post Sep 24, 2023 International Day of Education: An Afghan Woman’s Crime to Learn The right to education — to learn, to be curious, to explore the past and present freely — is critical to the development of individuals, civil societies, and nations as a whole. A robust and fair education system transforms societies for the better. In fact, education and democracy are considered highly correlated and intertwined.
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 Show Trials and Political Persecution: Judiciary in Putin’s Russia From Tsarism to the modern era, Russian leaders have attempted to mold the nation’s judiciary for their own gain and employ it as a weapon against their political opponents. In today’s Russia, this is evident by laws that limit anti-government demonstrations and criminalize anti-war speech.
