Authoritarian regimes are undermining international norms on freedom of association and blocking U.S. efforts to support civil society. Are the United States and the international community doing enough to address the global crackdown on civil society? What support for civil society is most effective? And what changes in U.S. policy are needed?
Latest News and Press Releases
September 08, 2015
Washington, D.C. – Human Rights First today urged Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Biswal to publicly raise concerns over the proposed...
July 30, 2015
Tomorrow the International Olympic Committee will choose the host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Narrowed down to two, Almaty and Beijing, the IOC is faced with a veritable human rights quagmire...
June 25, 2015
Washington, D.C. - Human Rights First today welcomed the release of the State Department’s 2015 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, noting that the widespread violations of human rights...
April 09, 2015
It’s getting hard to keep track of the case against Elena Klimova and her organization, Children-404.
The group’s name refers to the “page not found” Internet error code, signifying the...
March 25, 2015
In a rare victory for the human rights of LGBT Russians, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Nizhny Tagil overturned the January 23rd conviction of Elena Klimova for "...
March 16, 2015
A Russian court recently labeled Maximum, a regional LGBT organization in Murmansk, as a "foreign agent." Under the law, “foreign agents” are organizations engaged in "political activity" while...
February 10, 2015
Yesterday Elisa Massimino, Human Rights First President and CEO, spoke to the American Bar Association (ABA) during its midyear meeting. She laid out the case for American leadership on human rights...
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December 12, 2013
Global Repercussions and U.S. Responses
Resources
Factsheet | 2016
The international LGBT community has watched in horror as Russia’s brand of discriminatory propaganda legislation has taken root outside its borders.
The flagship piece of that legislation, the federal law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,” has
Talking Points | March 01, 2022
What are sanctions, and why are they being used or proposed in this crisis?
The word “sanctions” broadly describes a range of coercive measures usually aimed at changing behavior, either by...
Issue Brief | June 07, 2019
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Introduction
When meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office in September 2018, Polish President Andrzej Duda urged the United States to create a permanent military base in...
Opinions | February 26, 2019
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This article originally appeared in The Anatomy of Illiberal States: Assessing and Responding to Democratic Decline in Turkey and Central Europe, published by The...
Report | July 11, 2018
Introduction
Poland is soon approaching a point of no return concerning the independence of its judiciary. On July 3, more than 40 percent of the country’s 73 Supreme Court judges as of July 3 are...
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