Freedom House

The International Partnership Group for Azerbaijan strongly condemns a series of repressive legislative amendments that Azerbaijan’s National Assembly adopted on 14 May 2013. The existing penalties for criminal defamation and insult have been extended to online content and public demonstrations.

The Baha’i faith was founded in 19th Century Persia and currently constitutes the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The percentage of the world’s population living in societies with a fully free press has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade, according to a Freedom House report.

The member states of the United Nations should hold Azerbaijan to account during its Universal Periodic Review on 30 April 2013 for its failure to protect basic human rights, says the International Partnership Group on Azerbaijan.

Even though 36% of respondents to a poll classified their religious identity as “Atheist” or “Non-Religious”, the interests and right to free expression of nonbelievers are frequently ignored in discussions of religious freedom around the world.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which is scheduled to undergo markup by the House Intelligence Committee, fails to strike a balance between combatting online security threats and protecting individual privacy, and threatens to set a negative example for other countries looking to adopt similar laws.

Freedom House guest blogger Thomas R. Lansner critiques mainstream media coverage of Mali’s conflict. He notes that most of the photos available, as the French newspaper Liberation observes, “have the feeling of having been produced by the school of fine arts of war….”

Digital media by no means supplant action in the physical world, but when used wisely by courageous citizen journalists such as Yoani Sánchez, they can serve as a vital tool in the push to uphold universal human rights.