Newsletter Oct 15, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #142 In Iraq, the regime devalued the dinar by about 14.5% overnight, pushing up the cost of imported food, medicine, and fuel while eroding the value of salaries and savings.
Newsletter Oct 8, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #141 In India, Apple removed Bitchat from the country’s App Store after the government ordered the company to block the offline messaging app.
Human Rights Dispatch Oct 7, 2026 Nasrin Sotoudeh Awarded Maseko Prize, HRF Petitions UN Over Disappeared Rwandan Journalist HRF and the Thulani Maseko Foundation are proud to award the 2026 Thulani Maseko Justice Prize to Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Press Release Oct 7, 2026 Announcing the 2026 Thulani Maseko Justice Prize Laureate NEW YORK (Oct. 7, 2026) — The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) and the Thulani Maseko Foundation (TMF) are pleased to announce the recipient of the 2026 Thulani Maseko Justice Prize: Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Newsletter Oct 1, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #140 This week reminds us how fragile financial access can be in difficult political environments. In Iran, Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi announced that the regime had identified and frozen 2,191 bank accounts belonging to 394 people accused of collaborating with a “hostile enemy.”
Newsletter Sep 28, 2026 HRF’s AI for Individual Rights Newsletter #19 In Iran and China, state-backed actors are using AI to run autonomous influence campaigns. These actors can now deploy hundreds of AI agents to create social media accounts and flood platforms with political content, marking a new era of authoritarian propaganda.
Report Sep 17, 2026 Manipulation of Sustainable Development: Framing of the UN SDGs by Authoritarian Regimes The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are global sustainability benchmarks adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to guide an inclusive and sustainable transformation by 2030.
Newsletter Sep 17, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #138 In Iran, the clerical dictatorship doubled the price of gasoline beyond subsidized quotas from 5,000 to 10,000 tomans per liter. With inflation above 87% and food prices also doubled, security forces are now deployed around fuel stations in at least 11 cities.
Newsletter Sep 3, 2026 HRF’s Weekly Financial Freedom Report #136 In Russia, officials sentenced a senior programmer to a four-year suspended sentence for donating $21 to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). Leonid Stepanov was convicted using his own bank statements, showing how the Kremlin weaponizes financial surveillance and demonstrating precisely why alternative payment rails like Bitcoin matter in the struggle for democracy.
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.
Op-Ed Mar 23, 2026 Russia Is Failing Its Allies When It Matters Most The war in Iran, and especially the quick decapitation of the country’s leadership structure, has been a swift, remarkable display of American power and Israeli determination. But there is one other fact it has proven: an alliance with Moscow counts for little when a regime faces its greatest threat.
Blog Post Jan 27, 2026 All Eyes on Iran: After a Bloody Crackdown, Democracies Should Hold the Regime Accountable It has been 31 days since the Iranian people took to the streets en masse to protest. Though initially sparked by economic hardship, the protests quickly grew beyond Tehran’s grand bazaar, as people expressed outrage over the regime’s widespread human rights violations and called for the removal of dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Human Rights Dispatch Jan 16, 2026 Venezuelan prisoners of conscience released, Nicaragua electoral results backed by OAS and EU, Iran protests update. HRF welcomes the release of a group of Venezuelan prisoners of conscience, including the 2025 Thulani Maseko Justice Prize laureate, Rocío San Miguel.
Press Release Mar 14, 2025 HRF succeeds in UN petition, Iran condemned for arbitrary detention The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) welcomes the decision of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) ruling that Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi’s two arrests and more than 753 days of detention were arbitrary and in violation of international law.
Press Release Nov 8, 2024 HRF Condemns Second Assassination Plot Against Iranian Activist Masih Alinejad The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) condemns the assassination plot, made public today by the U.S. Department of Justice, against Iranian journalist, women’s rights activist, and former Oslo Freedom Forum speaker Masih Alinejad. This is the third attempt on her life in the last three years orchestrated by the Iranian regime.
Announcement Dec 14, 2023 Jailed in Iran: A Story of Hope and Activism On Dec. 6, the Oslo Freedom Forum (OFF) hosted “Jailed in Iran: A Story of Hope and Activism,” a conversation with author and former Iranian hostage Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and moderated by Hanne Skartveit, VG’s political editor.
