In response to an open letter from Index and a number of media freedom groups, Foreign Secretary William Hague outlines the Coalition Government's...
CATEGORY: Europe and Central Asia
Is drug legislation being used to silence opposition activists?
Opposition activist Taisiya Osipova was sentenced to ten years on charges of drug trafficking on Friday. Rights activists allege that her arrest is...
Opposition activist Sergey Udaltsov under threat from Moscow police
Opposition leader Sergey Udaltsov has spent much of December under arrest and on hunger strike --- but the unity of his supporters grows stronger...
Azerbaijani activist freed
Azerbaijani Facebook activist Jabbar Savalan was released on 26 December after almost 11 months in prison. The teenager was released by presidential...
Over 100,000 Russians protesters aim to prevent Putin from becoming president
According to opposition leaders, at least 120,000 people gathered in the centre of Moscow on 24 December to demand new and fair parliamentary...
“Putin uses tabloid to try and split Russian opposition”
A leading online tabloid has published opposition leader Boris Nemtsov’s private phone conversations, during which he denigrated other Russian...
Turkey: 40 journalists arrested in alleged terror plot
Forty Turkish journalists were arrested in raids which targeted suspected members of the "press and propaganda wing" of a banned Kurdish separatist...
“My brother is dying in silence”
One year on from the crackdown on the opposition in Belarus, Irina Bogdanova, sister of political prisoner Andrei Sannikov, calls for international action against Europe’s last dictatorship
Russia gets ready to protest
The first meeting of Russia's newly elected State Duma will be held on 21 December. Tens of thousands of Russians protested the parliamentary...
An artists’ manifesto for Belarus
In one of his last public acts, dissident, playwright and president Václav Havel signed this statement calling for free speech in Belarus, along with Ai Weiwei, Sir Tom Stoppard and many more