A study of Russian civil society and its resilience under authoritarian pressure. We explore how people defend human rights and free expression, how the state works to silence them, and why independent voices and grassroots initiative still matter for the country's democratic future
The report focuses on 5 countries situated in Eurasia: China, Russia, Belarus, Iran, and Hungary, all of which are led by authoritarian leaders that possess robust state machinery for population control. On these 5 country cases, the report investigates whether there were any features in their response to the pandemic specific for autocratic regimes and what are the outcomes of their approaches.
Interview with Denis Sokolov conducted by Lidia Mikhalchenko. On April 20, 2020, a spontaneous protest took place in North Ossetia. Official statements by the government described them as…
Alexey Kozlov is a veteran of the non-profit sector with over 25 years of experience focused on civil society, human rights and democratic development projects. He has been…
On May 5, 2018, New York became a parade ground for two diasporas commemorating a distinct source of ethnic pride. Cinco de Mayo commanded the larger following that…
“... in no circumstances shall a State be entitled to be called a democracy unless it does, in fact as well as in law, guarantee to its citizens…
On July 9, the European Court of Human Rights made the decision in the case of Valeriya Volodina from Ulyanovsk, who had spent three years trying to get…
“What is the cost of lies?” asks Valery Legasov, the Soviet nuclear physicist at the heart of the hit HBO series ‘Chernobyl’. “It’s not that we will mistake…
The case of the Kremlin-connected oligarch Suleyman Kerimov is a testimony to the power of the Russian state when it is used to the benefit of its allies…
A 282-page report on the Kremlin’s political prisoners—The Kremlin’s Political Prisoners: Advancing a Political Agenda by Crushing Dissent—was authored by the public interest law…
Throughout history, the church in Russia has been subordinated to the state, serving as an effective tool to advance the state’s agenda domestically and globally. This phenomenon held…
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