Xi Jinping has excelled with his tyrant credentials this year. Earlier this year, a controversial United Nations‘ report said that “serious human...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Xi Jinping, China
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Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Tyrant of the year 2022: Vladimir Putin, Russia
Vladmir Vladimirovich Putin is the tyrant’s tyrant in more ways than one. Over the two decades he has dominated Russian politics as president and...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo may not be an obvious choice for our 2022 ‘Tyrant of the Year’, but he certainly wins awards for many aspects of his...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar
The atrocious worker conditions and contempt for basic human rights in Qatar have certainly been on our minds over the last year. However,...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia
“Mohammed bin Salman should be awarded the title of ‘tyrant of the year’ not only because of his track record of censorship and suppression, but...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar
“As a child Aung San Suu Kyi was a celebrated heroine in my family home and Myanmar, an authoritarian regime determined to squash democracy. For a...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Kim Jong-un, North Korea
“As far as freedoms go, there is no landscape so bleak as North Korea,” says Index assistant editor Katie Dancey-Downs. “Under Kim Jong-un’s...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua
There is nothing more disappointing (or predictable) than a revolutionary hero turned tyrant. In the great tradition of Lenin and Castro, Ortega...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico
"He who has nothing to hide, has nothing to fear". These were the words uttered by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador in a February...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Belarus
“You can usually tell the quality of a tyrant’s credentials by the number of people he has thrown in jail on spurious grounds and Europe’s last...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Ali Khamenei, Iran
If you were in the Iranian capital Tehran on Friday 23 September, you would be forgiven for thinking that Ali Khamenei was a popular and...
Tyrant of the year 2022: Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt
While world leaders met in Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27, British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah began a full hunger...