<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><!-- generator="WordPress/2.9.2" -->
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>Democracy Digest &#187; dissidents</title>
	<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog</link>
	<description>Democracy Digest provides news, analysis and information on democracy promotion and related matters. The Digest is produced at the National Endowment for Democracy.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:38:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Cybersecurity pits crime fighters against freedom fighters?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Cybersecurity concerns threaten to expose already vulnerable dissidents and activists to greater monitoring, according to this NPR report.
With cybercrime and espionage rising, and governments reportedly preparing for the possibility of cyberwar, security experts are highlighting the &#8220;attribution problem&#8221; of identifying and tracking source of cyberattacks.
But attribution also allows autocratic regimes to identify and neutralize web-based [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/cybersecurity-pits-crime-fighters-against-freedom-fighters.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Islam and democracy revisited</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The issue of Islam’s relationship to democracy will be one of the principal themes of an important debate this week at Oxford University.  Two of western Islam&#8217;s leading thinkers – Hamza Yusuf and Tariq Ramadan – will debate two of the basic questions being asked ever more insistently about Islam:
The first is whether Muslims can [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/islampolitics/islam-and-democracy-revisited.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>2009 a year of living dangerously as autocrats target activists</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Authoritarian regimes have deliberately targeted and intensified attacks against human rights and democracy advocates over the past year, according to the annual review of Human Rights Watch. <a href="http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/2009-a-year-of-living-dangerously-as-autocrats-target-activists.html">[read full story]</a>]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/2009-a-year-of-living-dangerously-as-autocrats-target-activists.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Europe betrays democratic ideal over Cuba &#8211; Havel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By appeasing Cuba&#8217;s communist regime, Europe is betraying the humanist ideal at the core of its political identity, writes former dissident Vaclav Havel.
&#8220;One of the fundamental pillars of Europe&#8217;s political architecture is a strong and enduring belief in the universal validity of equal, universal, and inalienable human rights,&#8221; he says. But, 20 years on from [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/democracy-promotion/europe-betrays-democractic-ideal-over-cuba-havel.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Obama&#8217;s speech in Egypt &#8211; spot the democracy indicators</title>
		<description><![CDATA[President Barack Obama&#8217;s speech in Egypt next week will need to balance strategic and diplomatic considerations with a clear commitment to democratic reform in the region, writes J. Scott Carpenter. But Obama is likely, perhaps even compelled, to prioritize economic and security concerns over democracy promotion, writes William Galston, a board member of the National [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/mena/obamas-speech-in-egypt-spot-the-democracy-indicators.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Democratizing Belarus</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Democratizing Europe&#8217;s last dictatorship will curb the Kremlin&#8217;s aggression in its periphery and encourage democratic forces within Russia, writes Jeffrey Gedmin, president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
As economic crisis threatens to fray the social pact underpinning Alexander Lukashenko&#8217;s hard-line regime and economic relations with Russia strained, the democratic West should eschew short-term realpolitik and ramp [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/easterneurope/democratizing-belarus.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Resisting authoritarianism &#8211; dissidents testify in Geneva</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Leading democracy and human rights activists feature in a global webcast this weekend to provide worldwide participation in the Geneva Summit for Democracy, Tolerance and Human Rights. The summit, held on the eve of the discredited U.N. Racism Conference, will include contributions on &#8220;Resisting Authoritarianism: Human Rights, Democracy and the Dissident Movement&#8221; from Egyptian dissident [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/global/resisting-authoritarianism-dissidents-testify-in-geneva.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Coddling Cuba?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Excellent op-ed in the Washington Post today berating those pushing for a shift in policy towards Cuba without linking such changes to democracy and human rights. It observes that the congressional pressure could undermine President Obama&#8217;s promise that &#8220;liberty&#8221; will be at the center of his administration&#8217;s Cuba policy and that the lifting of the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/lac/coddling-cuba.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Policy review prompts solidarity with Cuba&#8217;s democrats</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Democracy and human rights groups are urging the Congressional Black Caucus, which yesterday met with Fidel Castro, to press Cuba&#8217;s communist authorities on the welfare of the island&#8217;s political prisoners and democracy activists, including Afro-Cuban prisoner of conscience Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and civil rights activist Jorge Luis Perez Garcia, aka &#8220;Antunez.&#8221;
The World Movement for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/democracy-assistance/policy-review-prompts-solidarity-with-cubas-democrats.html</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Syria: engagement at expense of democratic dissidents?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[ 
&#8220;The winds of change coming out of Washington have rekindled talk of liberalization and reform in Damascus,&#8221; claims Joshua Landis, writing in the April edition of Carnegie&#8217;s Arab Reform Bulletin. He cites proposed economic reforms and President Bashar al-Assad&#8217;s latest promises of political reforms that would expand political participation, including &#8220;creating another chamber in addition [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.demdigest.net/blog/regions/mena/syria-engagement-at-expense-of-democratic-dissidents.html</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>
