Free Republic

My country, Venezuela, is on the verge of social and economic collapse. This slow-motion disaster, nearly 15 years in the making, was not initiated by falling oil prices or by mounting debts. It was set in motion by the authoritarian government’s hostility toward human rights and the rule of law and the institutions that protect them. -excerpt- I am writing from a military prison, where I have been held since February as a result of speaking out against the government’s actions. I am one of scores of political prisoners in my country .... -excerpt- ... Venezuela’s road to ruin was...

DURING 15 years of confinement in psychiatric institutions in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, Dimitri Gerasimenko was starved and repeatedly beaten. The indignities did not end with his death five years ago at the age of 30.Staff at the ramshackle asylum 50 miles from Bishkek, the capital, have never told his mother Raisa, 65, how he died. All her attempts to retrieve his remains have been met with prevarication, compounding her grief. “First I was asked for money if I wanted the body back,” she said. “Then I was told Dimitri had been sent to a medical academy. When...

Ukraine Guilty of Human Rights Violations in Trade Union Massacre, Top European Court Finds March 25, 2025 Euromaidan in Kiev, 19 February 2014. Labor Unions’ House on fire. The European Court of Human Rights has found the Ukrainian government guilty of committing human rights violations during the May 2, 2014 Odessa massacre, in which dozens of Russian-speaking demonstrators were forced into the city’s Trade Unions House and burned alive by ultranationalist thugs. Citing the “relevant authorities’ failure to do everything that could reasonably be expected of them to prevent the violence in Odessa,” the court ruled unanimously that Ukraine violated...

To day I have made this human rights complaint against Anthony Albanese to the United Nations: I, Geoff Fox, hold the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese responsible for the denial of the Aged Care pension to me and the violation of my human rights under Articles 1 (denial of a spirit of brotherhood), 5 (no cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment ), 21 (denial of the right to equal access to public service in Australia), 22 (denial of indispensable economic rights) and 25 (denial of the right to security in old age).

Human rights lawyer Bob Amsterdam has worked in Ukraine for the past couple of years and confirms that if anything, that’s an understatement.

One can’t help but see the grim irony in a United Nations event on human rights being held in Hangzhou, a major Chinese city known for its technological hubs, co-hosted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Perhaps the invitations were printed on forced-labor cotton paper, and the keynote address brainstormed over a surveillance feed of political prisoners. Leave it to the UN to turn hypocrisy into a high art. This past December, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the PRC co-hosted the Hernán Santa Cruz Dialogue on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights...

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The man accused of pointing a rifle into the golf course where former President Donald Trump was playing last weekend, was known in his hometown as something of a bad actor. “Weird” is how one of Ryan Routh’s former neighbors in Greensboro described him. She told reporters he once had a horse in his house and that he also kept guns. A man, who like the first neighbor asked not to be identified for fear of being associated with Routh, says he didn’t know the 58 year old well but got a similar vibe. “I mean, [he]...

@JewishOnliner Palestine Red Crescent Spokesman Photographed with Apparent Terrorists. A new investigation reveals PRCS spokesman Raed Al-Nams photographed alongside armed terrorists. Al-Nams (wearing glasses) can be seen with Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade member Abdul Qadan (center, keffiyeh).🧵. Jan 20, 2025

When a historical figure passes away, it’s almost inevitable that there will be a concerted effort to paint him in a favorable light — after all, the old adage of “don’t speak ill of the dead” prevails. However, the attempt to rewrite Jimmy Carter’s legacy following his death has reached such absurd, almost Orwellian heights, as if others are trying to erase history and pretend that Carter wasn’t one of America’s most ineffective presidents. Like clockwork, media outlets have rushed to elevate his presidency, attempting to reframe his time in office as the golden age of moral leadership. The most...

Jimmy Carter's No Real Humanitarian by Gordon Smith When former President Jimmy Carter speaks to the graduates of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on May 3, the listeners might bear in mind that Carter's reputation for principled concern for the downtrodden is open to question. Carter has done some benevolent things after 1981, as ex-President. He's built homes for the poor, spoken eloquently on behalf of human rights, helped the Haitian dictator Cedras resign, and presided over the negotiations ending the Yugoslav War. While all of this is good, Carter presided over some serious war crimes in the Third World....

The Taliban has decreed that Afghan women are forbidden to: Go to high school or university. Work in the civil service. Attend a protest. Go abroad. Drive a car. Travel alone. Ride in a taxi. Speak in public. Speak loudly inside your house. Sing. Read the Quran aloud in public. Speak to a male doctor. Play sport. Go to the gym. Go to the park. Wear bright clothes. Wear high heels. Look at men they don’t know. Show their faces in public. Own a smartphone. ... Some pictures of the golden age in Afghanistan. ... Ivy League campuses and the...

The nation’s biggest abortion business has been shown once again to be selling the body parts of aborted babies. The latest expose’ of the Planned Parenthood abortion giant comes via never- before-seen documents released under a California public records request. They show Planned Parenthood selling 23-week-old aborted babies to a university for dubious research, Newly revealed documents show Planned Parenthood supplying UC San Diego with aborted babies parts from unborn babies killed in elective abortions , including viable babies up to 23 weeks. The agreements suggest the use of fetal material for research projects in exchange for potential intellectual property...

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 28, 2023 / 09:15 am The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, who lives in exile in the United States, called the Daniel Ortega dictatorship’s staging this weekend of a prison interview with Bishop Rolando Álvarez “repugnant and cynical.” Álvarez was sentenced to 26 years and four months in prison on Feb. 10 as a “traitor to the homeland.” El 19 Digital, a news outlet supportive of the dictatorship, released over the weekend photos and a video of Álvarez, the bishop of Matagalpa, who was visited by a brother and sister on March 25 in the...

Massive police repression in Germany as war against free speech and basic human rights ratchets up under left-liberal government.. After a 64-year-old pensioner retweeted a meme of Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, in which Habeck was described as an “idiot,” Bavarian police raided the man’s house and arrested him. The crime has even been recorded as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.” The man is accused of distributing a photo of Habeck via retweet, where Habeck is described as an “idiot.” The Bamberg prosecutor’s office indicates that this constitutes a federal criminal offense of “hatred.” “At a time that cannot currently...

The newly minted president of George Washington University said he was "personally offended" by art posted around the college's campus condemning China's human rights abuses. "Please know that I am personally offended by the posters. I treasure the opportunity to work with talented people from all over the world, including China," George Washington University President Mark Wrighton wrote in an email. "I, too, am saddened by this terrible event and we will undertake an effort to determine who is responsible." A screenshot of the email was posted to Twitter by the artist behind the posters, known only as Badiucao. He...

I am a writer and poet, though not by trade. The following poem, in the comments below, is one of several I have written as a tribute to those who were never allowed to be born. It was prompted by the battle over Amendment 3 in Missouri and similar initiatives elsewhere. We lost on Amendment 3 yesterday, but I am not without hope, and I do not believe the final word on this issue has been spoken. My words are not eloquent, but I do hope they are poignant. Also, I hope I'm posting this correctly. This is a first...

Pro-life activist Heather Idoni, who was imprisoned by the Department of Justice under the Biden administration for trying to rescue the unborn at a late-term abortion clinic in Washington D.C., continues to suffer gross mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. Marshals. Idoni and her husband, who are both heavily involved in pro-life work, have five biological children and have adopted 10 boys from Ukraine. Heather has been behind bars since August 2023 and has been convicted and sentenced in two trials — one in Washington, D.C. and another in Nashville, Tennessee — on charges of violating the pro-abortion FACE...

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address at Harvard University—8 June 1978. {Russian audio with English-translation audio overlay; and English subtitles.} PLEASE NOTE: THERE DOES NOT EXIST A VIDEO WITH ONLY ONE LANGUAGE AUDIO. SORRY. THIS IS HOW IT WAS RECORDED. PLEASE TURN ON CC/SUBTITLES TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE ENGLISH.

In March 2016, top Planned Parenthood officials in California eagerly emailed one another about an upcoming meeting with the state’s then-attorney general, Kamala Harris. The meeting carried so much import that the Planned Parenthood officials met with Harris’ staff ahead of time “to discuss prep,” emails reviewed by The Daily Signal show. About two weeks later, on April 5, 2016, California Department of Justice authorities raided the home of a pro-life journalist in his late 20s—David Daleiden, the head of the Center for Medical Progress, who had recently published videos allegedly showing Planned Parenthood officials gruesomely describing how they extract...

PCO says it will review its background check processThe Privy Council Office (PCO) says it did not search the aliases Birju Dattani, the new head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, used to make controversial social media posts. A spokesperson for the PCO said in a statement to CBC News on Monday that "an administrative oversight resulted in the aliases not being searched by PCO." In June, Dattani was named the CHRC's chief commissioner, making him the first Muslim or racialized person to head the organization. Shortly after his historic appointment, national Jewish organizations cited what they described as antisemitic...