Featured News
Crackdown in Belarus: Responding to the Lukashenko Regime
Jan 28, 2011
(Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs, 1/27/2011)
Freedom House Executive Director David J. Kramer testified yesterday before the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs about the violence and egregious human rights violations that occurred in the aftermath of last month’s presidential elections in Belarus and the possibility of increased U.S. sanctions against members of the Lukashenko regime. Following the election, which was marred by irregularities according to observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the U.S. Embassy, security forces arrested hundreds of activists, including seven of the opposition candidates who ran for president, who protested the official claim of Mr. Lukashenko’s overwhelming victory.
The other witnesses included Senator Richard Durbin, who recently traveled to Belarus, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Philip Godon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human, Rights and Labor Thomas O. Melia, Kenneth Wollack, President of the National Democratic Institute, and Natalia Kaliada, a Belarussian asylum seeker who was arrested in the December crackdown.
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Highlighting Human Rights During US Visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao
Jan 21, 2011
Freedom in the World 2011: The Authoritarian Challenge to Democracy
Jan 13, 2011
On January 13, Freedom House hosted an event to launch the findings of Freedom in the World 2011, its annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties. According to the findings, 2010 was the fifth consecutive year in which global freedom suffered a decline—the longest period of setbacks for freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. The panel discussed this decline, as well as the increasing assertiveness of the world’s most powerful authoritarian regimes, and the growing inability or unwillingness of the world’s democracies to meet the authoritarian challenge.
To view the full report, click here.
To watch the event, click here. Watch David Kramer's interview on C-SPAN |
Press Releases
African Union Should Reject Chairmanship of Equatorial GuineaJanuary 28, 2011 Mubarak’s Statement Fails to Address Demands of CitizensJanuary 28, 2011 Death of Gay Rights Activist in Uganda Highlights Need for Government ActionJanuary 27, 2011 Recent Reports
January 13, 2011 October 21, 2010 September 20, 2010 Governance Blog
Egypt's democratic facade continues to crumbleDecember 01, 2010 - Egypt’s November parliamentary elections saw, as expected, a sweeping victory for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), though that triumph occurred amid allegations of the worst fraud, electoral rigging, and political repression that Egypt has ever seen. In the News
Around the World, Freedom is in DeclineJanuary 20, 2011 - Washington Post Freedom Gone SouthJanuary 20, 2011 - Foreign Policy, by Joshua Keating Belarusian DreamingJanuary 03, 2011 - Wall Street Journal, by David J. Kramer |