Belarusian police are almost hunting journalists and other troublemakers. They have raided a total of 22 journalists, human rights activists and trade union members. Two of the journalists have been arrested and risk up to 3 years in prison. These are the journalists from the TV channel Belsat. Katsyaryna Andreyeva and Darya Chultsova. The…
The Soviet Union’s grip on Eastern Europe stretched beyond the 1980s. Central to what was to lead to the fall of the Eastern Bloc was the Polish trade union Solidarity. The leader Lech Walesa in particular played a big role. In September 1980, the trade union Solidarit was founded. The leader was Lech Walesa….
Once again, the military has taken power in Myanmar. Once again we see military leaders defying the will of the people. The Myanmar coup is a slap in the face to all democracy advocates. What exactly is the purpose of the Myanmar coup is somewhat unclear to me. In practice, the military already had…
On January 5, 1968, Alexander Dubcek was elected secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. This means that he became the country’s supreme leader. He started by introducing a number of reforms. These reforms included the introduction of a market socialist economy, a degree of freedom of expression and the press, the possibility of allowing…
Then what most people expected happened. Alexei Navalny was arrested by the police shortly after the plane landed at Moscow airport this evening. Allegedly, he was arrested for violating the reporting requirement that was part of the release condition from a previous sentence. Navalny returned to Russia after his stay in Germany following an…
The first large-scale protest against communism that the Soviet Union stood for in Eastern Europe took place in Hungary in 1956. The nationwide protests started on 23 October and lasted until the Soviet invasion on 10 November. The riots started with thousands of students in Budapest taking to the streets and marching towards the…