A “high-powered” delegation of U.S. Senators is expected to raise China’s fierce crackdown on dissent, including the detention of world-renowned artist Ai Weiwei, during talks in Beijing with senior Communist officials.

Ai’s detention exposes the essence of the Communist …

Pro-democracy protests continued to surge across Syria today as demonstrators dismissed government attempts to pacify critics by ending the emergency law and announcing further reforms.

“People don’t trust the regime anymore,” said Haithem Maleh, a former judge and human …

Civil society played a “transformational” role in ensuring the integrity of Nigeria’s presidential poll, but any feel-good factor has been muted by what the newly-elected president considers politically-orchestrated the post-election violence.

Some 200 people …

Two leading Chinese rights activists have been released after disappearing during the regime’s unprecedented crackdown on dissent.

Jiang Tianyong and Liu Xiaoyuan, prominent figures in China’s rights-based movement, were unexpectedly freed, but dozens of activists remain in police custody, with …

The Obama administration is acting on its commitment to assist pro-democracy advocates who exercise fundamental rights “in person, in print, or in pixels” with a $28 million fund for online activists.

The U.S. State Department is due to announce a …

Democracy is destabilizing – and liberating, as this New York Times report notes:

Democracy could prove dangerous, Mr. Sharif acknowledged, but nothing compares to the threat that every Libyan lived under during Colonel Qaddafi’s 42 years in power.

Mr. Sharif …

Vietnamese democracy activists Le Quoc Quan and Pham Hong Son were recently released from several days’ illegal detention after being arrested outside a Hanoi court as prominent legal advocate, Cu Huy Ha Vu (left) was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.…

Leading Cuban dissidents have dismissed Raul Castro’s call for term limits on future presidents as a cosmetic gesture designed to prolong Communist rule after the end of the Castro dynasty.

The regime’s anemic reform initiative coincides with a marked improvement …

Bahrain will not seek to dissolve the main opposition party, the country’s foreign minister said today, dismissing weekend reports that the regime would outlaw dissident groups.

But the state risks sliding into dictatorship, international labor unions warned, after hundreds …

Yemeni President Ali Abdulleh Saleh no doubt expected his call on anti-government demonstrators to “prevent the mixing [of men and women] on University Avenue, which is not approved by Islam” to divide the opposition. To the contrary. His comments have …