‘Historic’ words end trial that gives glimpse of other Russia


“Millions of people across the country and the entire world are awaiting the outcome of this trial. They are watching with hope that Russia will become a country of freedom and law.”
Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s words are an eloquent reminder that from Danton to Dreyfus, Socrates to Scharansky, historic trials have always highlighted the precarious balance between [read full story]

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Liu who? Ban Ki-moon defers to Beijing on human rights


It’s good to see that the UN Democracy Fund is inviting civil society groups to apply for a fresh round of funding projects ranging from media to rule of law.
But human rights and democracy advocates are indignant that the fund’s ultimate overseer – UN General Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – is refusing to raise such issues with [read full story]

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Russia’s dissidents rally, but reform unlikely without crisis, says Khodorkovsky


Russia’s political opposition may have been given a rare chance to hold a legal anti-government protest on Sunday, but the gesture by Moscow’s new mayor is unlikely to signal a wider liberalization.
It will likely take a major crisis to force the country’s corrupt elite to undertake reform, the country’s most prominent political prisoner said today.
Moscow’s [read full story]

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U.S. must act to help Chen Guangcheng, lawmakers demand


US lawmakers are urging Washington’s envoy in Beijing to raise the case of blind activist Chen Guangcheng with Chinese officials.
Chen, who has been under house arrest since his release from prison last month, won international recognition as one of a new generation of barefoot lawyers defending the rights of the disabled, victims of China’s one-child policy and [read full story]

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Asian arms race threatens region’s democracies

Today’s attack by North Korea is a vivid and violent reminder that the region’s authoritarian regimes have been enhancing their military capacities, obliging Asia’s democracies to follow suit.
But in bolstering their own militaries, “some of Asia’s most promising democracies are harming the very political stability that makes them prosperous and predictable,” warns Joshua Kurlantzick, a [read full story]

Development without democracy: foreign aid’s ‘dirty little secret’ (part 2)

Why are we supporting repression in Ethiopia? William Easterly and Laura Freschi want to know.
Foreign assistance is frequently used to subsidize and support sub-Saharan Africa’s most autocratic regimes, they note. But a new report on Ethiopia confirms a direct link between aid and political repression.
It details prime minister Meles Zenawi’s blatant use of aid as [read full story]

How will US respond to Egypt’s engineered poll?

With the result predetermined, analysts suggest the most interesting question about Egypt’s parliamentary election will be the U.S. response.  
Democracy advocates have urged the Obama administration to be more forceful and consistent in supporting political reform or risk provoking Islamist radicalization.
Given that Sunday’s poll has been rigged to deliver a majority for the ruling National [read full story]

Egypt’s movement of ‘potentially immense’ power (clue: it’s not the Wafd)

The outcome of this week’s parliamentary elections in Egypt is a foregone conclusion, analysts suggest.
The ruling National Democratic Party has engineered the results in advance, conceding just enough seats to opposition parties to create a semblance of pluralism and to marginalize the Muslim Brotherhood.
But while many liberal democratic groups have been co-opted or neutered, the [read full story]

Can Kosovo and Serbia reach an accord?

History is full of unlikely reconciliations: Nixon went to China, Mandela forgave his jailers, and a former Marxist guerilla now runs Latin America’s most dynamic capitalist economy.
The Pope even accepted the Reformation and Elizabeth Taylor remarried Richard Burton – twice!
But can Kosovo and Serbia reach an historic rapprochement? Would an accord help remove or reduce [read full story]

Egypt: poll rigged in advance, but opposition criticized for taking ‘easy way out’

Egypt’s refusal to allow international observers to monitor next Sunday’s parliamentary elections runs counter to the trend in the Middle East, a Washington meeting heard today.
The elections have been effectively rigged in advance a region to ensure a majority for the ruling National Democratic Party and ensure a smooth – possibly dynastic – transition in [read full story]

Democracy jobs

National Endowment for Democracy
Senior Planning Officer, Program Assistant- Grantmaking Resource Center, Program Officer for Middle East and North Africa.  
Center for International Private Enterprise
Program Assistant- Middle East and North Africa, Program Officer – Middle East and North Africa.
International Republican Institute
DC-based opportunities: Deputy Director – Eurasia, Program Officer - Latin America and Caribbean Region, Program Assistant, [read full story]

Democracy events

Monday, November 22, 2010- 5:30 p.m. Korea: The Road Ahead. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and Texas Christian University’s Schieffer School of Journalism will be holding a discussion on Korea: The Road Ahead. Participants will include Bob Schieffer, CBS News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation anchor; U.S. Special Representative to North [read full story]

China's Achilles' heel: democracy still an essential 'killer app'

China’s Achilles’ heel: democracy still an essential ‘killer app’

After 500 years of Western hegemony, has China managed to replicate the several “killer apps” that gave the West the edge over the rest? Niall Ferguson believes so.
Several emerging economies have now developed most of the technological, economic, cultural and scientific underpinnings that gave competitive advantage to the advanced market democracies, from competition and modern [read full story]

Russia’s creeping cyber-censorship

Unlike their Chinese or Iranian counterparts, Russia’s authoritarians have not established a Great Firewall or employed a cyber-army to monitor and sabotage dissent.
While independent media has been curtailed and journalists killed or assaulted, the internet remains relatively free, with the authorities preferring to “manage” on-line discourse, swamp the Web with pro-government propaganda and encourage pro-Kremlin [read full story]

Insight into China’s propaganda apparatus

Beijing’s vitriolic response to Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel peace prize award has highlighted the ruling Communist Party’s refusal to brook any dissent, even from advocates of peaceful, evolutionary reform.         
Some insight into the Orwellian distortions of the party’s formidable propaganda apparatus will go to distort the truth was gained at a recent Capitol Hill hearing on political reform organized [read full story]

Nobel ceremony to go ahead: Beijing’s ‘miscalculated’ belligerence backfires

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony will proceed after all even though the winner, jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (above) remains in jail.
Today’s announcement ends speculation that the event would be cancelled after Beijing’s communist authorities denied family members permission to travel and receive the award on his behalf.   
Liu is currently serving 11 years [read full story]

Azerbaijan: second freed 'donkey blogger' hopes case will boost activists' confidence

Azerbaijan: second freed ‘donkey blogger’ hopes case will boost activists’ confidence

A court in Azerbaijan has released dissident blogger Emin Milli from prison, a day after releasing his fellow activist Adnan Hajizada.
Baku’s Court of Appeal freed the two democracy advocates following an exemplary and international campaign by their families, bloggers, and civil society and human rights groups.
Analysts suggest that the bloggers’ imprisonment was a growing embarrassment [read full story]

Bakhtiyar Hajiyev: one Azerbaijani dissident released, another arrested

Bakhtiyar Hajiyev: one Azerbaijani dissident released, another arrested

As democracy advocates today celebrated the release of a dissident blogger by an Azerbaijani court, the regime has reportedly arrested another young activist.
Bakhtiyar Hajiyev (left), an independent candidate in the recent parliamentary election, had filmed and publicized a series of malpractices and  violations, an initiative which evidently irked the authorities.
Customs officials told local radio that [read full story]

Azerbaijan: I regret I didn't do more, says freed blogger

Azerbaijan: I regret I didn’t do more, says freed blogger

A blogger freed by an Azerbaijani court today has vowed to continue his activism, starting with efforts to free a fellow dissident who remains in jail.
Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli, were sentenced to two and two-and-a-half years, respectively, in November 2009 on trumped-up charges of hooliganism.
The Baku Court of Appeals ruled that Hajizade could serve [read full story]

Open networks, closed regime: China's networked authoritarianism

Open networks, closed regime: China’s networked authoritarianism

The public reaction to the hit-and-run killing of 22-year-old Li Qiming is “one of the most graphic examples yet of how China’s authoritarian politics is colliding with the relatively free public space created online.”
The ruling Communist party has managed to frustrate expectations that new information and communications technologies would undermine its hegemony.
“In the new century, [read full story]

Civil society – holding governments accountable

While we’re on the subject of good governance, transparency and all that, why not join the Center for Global Development and Foreign Policy magazine in honoring Publish What You Pay, the 2010 winner of the Commitment to Development Award?
The award recognizes individual and groups that make a “significant contribution to changing attitudes and policies towards [read full story]

A challenge from the MCC

It’s been described as “a catalyst for deepening democracy by creating incentives for policy reform and engaging democratic actors.” Others suggest it is an innovative if modest attempt to address, if not resolve, that elusive synthesis of democracy and development.
The Obama administration may have been wary of its predecessor’s freedom agenda, but it readily embraced [read full story]

Autocrats the worst sinners against religious liberty, says State Dept.

The most severe abuses of religious freedom occur under authoritarian governments, according to the State Department’s annual report on International Religious Freedom released today.
“Such governments seek to control all religious thought and expression as part of a more comprehensive determination to control all aspects of political and civic life,” the report notes.
Such regimes “regard some [read full story]

New Floribert Chebeya award for human rights defenders

Nominations are invited for a new annual prize launched to commemorate Floribert Chebeya, a leading human rights activist in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed earlier this year.
Several senior police officers were recently charged with the kidnap and murder of the executive director of Voix des sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless), one of the DRC’s largest [read full story]

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