Newsletter Feb 26, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #110 In Gabon, officials have imposed an indefinite nationwide social media suspension.
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.
Newsletter Jan 22, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #105 In Nigeria, a tax law requires providers of digital assets to monitor transactions, collect personal information, and link payments to biometric national ID systems.
Newsletter Jan 15, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #104 We begin this week in Iran, where currency collapse has turned into a call for political change.
Newsletter Dec 25, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #103 We begin this week with a stark case of transnational financial repression. Russian dissident and financial director of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), Anna Chekhovich, reports that her US bank accounts were temporarily shut down after the Kremlin labeled her an “extremist.”
Newsletter Dec 18, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #102 Last week, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, an international recognition of her decades-long efforts for democracy, human dignity, and free elections in Venezuela.
Newsletter Dec 11, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #101 In India, financial officials confirmed that the digital rupee, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), is now live and complete with spending controls.
Newsletter Nov 27, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #100 One hundred weeks ago, we set out to document how authoritarian regimes manipulate money and employ financial repression to restrict civil liberties, silence dissent, and undermine human rights – and how individuals are resisting with open-source software.
Newsletter Nov 27, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #99 Today, we reflect on the financial repression so many face around the world, and how brave and creative minds are pushing back.
Newsletter Nov 13, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #97 The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has raised alarm over an escalating crisis for press freedom in Pakistan, where local journalists and media workers are being financially targeted.
Newsletter Jul 10, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #80 In the wake of the latest conflict with Israel, Iran has orchestrated a domestic crackdown, detaining more than 1,000 people, killing dozens, and targeting minority communities and activists.
Newsletter Jul 3, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #79 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police and pro-government goons attacked peaceful demonstrators and violently suppressed June 25 marches, which marked the anniversary of last year’s anti-tax bill protests and honored the memory of at least 60 people killed then.
Newsletter Jun 12, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #76 This week, we begin in Kenya, where police detained Rose Njeri, a software developer and mother of two, for building a website that enables Kenyans to flag causes and email parliament concerning an unpopular tax bill that threatens to raise the cost of living in an already inflation-sticky economy.
Newsletter May 22, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #75 Today, we begin in China, where the central bank injected $138 billion into the economy and expanded the money supply by 12.5% year-over-year.
Newsletter May 15, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #74 We bring news from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group is imposing immense taxes on the local economy, merchants, and aid groups to fund its insurgency as it seeks to govern seized regions of the Eastern Congo.
Newsletter May 8, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #73 This week, we bring reports from Bangladesh, where the interim government instructed the central bank to halt the printing of old banknotes featuring Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh.
Newsletter May 1, 2025 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #72 This week, we bring pressing news from Belarus, where the regime’s central bank is preparing to launch its central bank digital currency in close collaboration with Russia by the end of 2026.
