Newsletter May 21, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #122 In North Korea, officials summoned more than 30 software developers to Pyongyang for what was presented as a technical training session, only to publicly reprimand them for building unauthorized software.
Newsletter May 14, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #121 In El Salvador, officials froze the assets of two members of El Faro, one of the country’s leading independent media organizations.
Newsletter May 7, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #120 In India, the state is expanding its central bank digital currency within welfare programs across the country.
Newsletter Apr 30, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #119 In Kenya, users of the digital asset exchange Binance report account freezes at the request of law enforcement.
Newsletter Apr 27, 2026 HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Newsletter #9 We start this month in Russia, where officials proposed new legislation aimed at restricting or banning Russian access to foreign AI models.
Newsletter Apr 23, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #118 We start in Uganda, where officials are pushing a Foreign Agents bill that may sharply limit funding for civil society organizations.
Newsletter Apr 16, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #117 We start in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the country’s central bank has announced plans to ban cash transactions in US dollars and other foreign currencies starting in April 2027.
Newsletter Apr 9, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #116 In China, officials have ordered the removal of Bitchat from Apple’s App Store. Officials cited violations of regulations governing “internet-based information services with attribute (sp) of public opinions or capable of social mobilization.”
Newsletter Apr 2, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #115 India’s central bank is negotiating with up to five peers to expand its digital rupee, a central bank digital currency (CBDC), for cross-border institutional and retail transactions, urging fellow BRICS nations to connect their respective CBDCs.
Newsletter Mar 30, 2026 HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Newsletter #8 We begin with research from the African Digital Rights Network, which documents how 11 African countries have collectively spent more than $2 billion on Chinese-built “smart city” AI-powered surveillance systems.
Newsletter Mar 26, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #114 In Uganda, the Museveni regime has frozen the bank accounts of several prominent human rights organizations.
Newsletter Mar 19, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #113 This edition examines Venezuela’s first official inflation reading in more than a year after the regime halted public reporting and restricted independent estimates.
Newsletter Mar 12, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #112 We begin this week’s edition in Cuba, where personal stories reveal the human toll of currency collapse under the communist regime.
Newsletter Mar 5, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #111 In Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo regime is turning exile into economic erasure. Nicaraguans expelled since 2023 have reported that, within hours of deportation, the state stripped them of their nationality, canceled their pensions, and deleted decades of their contribution records.
Newsletter Feb 26, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #110 In Gabon, officials have imposed an indefinite nationwide social media suspension.
Newsletter Feb 24, 2026 HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Newsletter #7 This month: Russia is pouring $29 million into AI-powered censorship.
Newsletter Feb 19, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #109 In India, the government is piloting a new system that uses its central bank digital currency (CBDC) to distribute free food rations.
Newsletter Feb 12, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #108 In Kenya, the central bank warned that making Valentine’s Day bouquets out of banknotes could carry prison sentences of up to seven years.
Newsletter Feb 5, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #107 In Russia, physical bank branches are closing down at a record pace. The closures are placing renewed pressure on Russians living in rural areas and those contending with frequent Internet disruptions as a result of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Newsletter Jan 29, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #106 This week, we investigate new developments surrounding China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), as recent design changes show that the Chinese Communist Party is experimenting with new incentives to onboard people to this more tightly controlled kind of money.
