National Endowment for Democracy

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Yevgeny Zhovtis – the new Roman Polanski?

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev makes a rather bizarre attempt to justify the incarceration of human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis, comparing his case to that of celebrated film director Roman Polanski. 
Zhovtis was sentenced to four years in prison for accidentally striking and killing a man with his car.
“I don’t even want to comment on this [read full story]

Russia’s Legal Nihilism …Not Much the West Can Do?

Russia provides a challenging “test case” for the Obama administration’s approach to promoting democracy while engaging authoritarian regimes, a Washington meeting heard this week.
While President Dmitry Medvedev was ostensibly committed to modernization, Russia needs “broader institutional changes, including rule of law”, said Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. [read full story]

Gerardo Le Chevalier – no one better understood democracy’s prospects in the Americas

More tragic news emerging from Haiti where the United Nations confirmed that Gerardo Le Chevalier, head of the UN Electoral Assistance unit, was killed in the 7.0 quake.
A Salvadoran citizen and former director of Latin America and Caribbean programs for the National Democratic Institute, he was among those who died when the U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince [read full story]

And the Oscar goes to………..

Burma VJ has been nominated for an Oscar in the 2010 Academy Awards. The film is considered to be a front-runner in the race for the Best Documentary. 
The documentary features the work of an underground network of video journalists which smuggled footage of Burma’s 2007 saffron revolution to the outside world. The network is supported [read full story]

Media round-up

Hugo Chavez’s latest assault on Venezuela’s independent media and propaganda and intimidation in the run-up to Sri Lanka’s presidential election feature in the latest media round-up from the Center for International Media Assistance.
CIMA, an initiative of the National Endowment for Democracy, also highlights stories detailing how nimble agencies (including NED grantees) smuggle news from North [read full story]

2009 a year of living dangerously as autocrats target activists

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. [read full story]

Cuba bans blogger (not very engaging)

Cuba’s communist authorities have banned a dissident blogger from travelling to the U.S. to receive a major journalism award.
Yoani Sánchez won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for her blog, Generacion Y, which is critical of the one-party state and receives 14 million hits each month. Time Magazine has named her as one of the world’s [read full story]

Vietnam stifles dissent in advance of party congress

Vietnam’s communist regime today imprisoned several activists for promoting democracy and defending the country’s territorial claims in the Eastern Sea. The prosecutions are designed to stifle dissent and offset pressures for reform in the run-up to a major communist party congress, analysts suggest.
Exiled pro-democracy reformers say the trials confirm that Hanoi criminalizes free speech and [read full story]

‘Extraordinary’ activists win human rights award

Defenders of Burmese political prisoners, rape victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopian civil society and human rights in the Caucasus make up the winners of this year’s Human Rights Watch awards for extraordinary activism.
Bo Kyi emerged from several years in the Burmese junta’s jails to establish a support network for those he left [read full story]

North Korean Human Rights

The US-Korea Institute at SAIS and the National Endowment for Democracy are pleased to co-sponsor a seminar on the status of human rights violations in North Korea, featuring Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang and Mr. Kim Sang-hun, on October 8, 2009. 
The 2009 White Paper on North Korean Human Rights
 Featuring:
Dr. Yoon Yeo-sang, President, North Korean Human Rights Database [read full story]

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