democracy - Page 6

Wednesday saw the largest protests to date against the coup in Myanmar, despite a ban on large gatherings imposed by the military. Many of the demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese embassy in the city of Yangon and accused China of supporting the junta, or even using the junta as puppets so Beijing could take control of Myanmar.

The Economist ranked France as a “failing democracy” due to the restrictions on freedoms Emmanuel Macron’s government imposed during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

(AFP) — A Hong Kong internet radio host was arrested on Sunday under a little-used colonial era sedition law that authorities have begun to wield against Beijing’s critics.

The first week of Joe Biden’s presidency has been an assault on the democratic norms that Biden claims to uphold.

Chinese state media spent the weekend crowing that “American-style democracy” is finished after the Capitol riot, asserting the United States has sacrificed all credibility as a voice for freedom, as well as the moral stature to criticize countries like China for their human rights abuses.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is accusing the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol this week of choosing “whiteness over democracy.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday claimed the riot on Capitol Hill shows “the U.S. electoral process is archaic, does not meet modern standards, and is prone to violations.”

Chinese state media mocked American democracy on Tuesday, dismissing it as a turgid form of entertainment enjoyed by Chinese citizens who “became bored while staying at home most of the year in 2020 due to the [Chinese coronavirus] epidemic,” as the Global Times put it.

Hong Kong police raided 72 locations and made at least 53 arrests in a massive crackdown on pro-democracy advocates Wednesday morning.

Author, blogger, and Chinese-born Australian citizen Yang Hengjun, arrested by China in 2019 on murky allegations of espionage in January 2019 and held without trial ever since, sent a Christmas on Tuesday message to the family he isn’t allowed to see.

While the imminent dissolution of Israel’s Knesset was keeping the country on tenterhooks Tuesday, another smaller, but arguably no less significant, development was taking place in its Supreme Court. For the first time ever, the court debated the legality of a Basic Law — essentially challenging its own constitution — in a move that has been denounced as the “quiet death of democracy.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin unleashed a tirade against the British on Tuesday, railing that the current U.K. government has no right to criticize China for extinguishing liberty and autonomy in Hong Kong because the British allegedly granted the island no freedom or dignity during their 150 years of colonial rule.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is compiling a “blacklist” of Taiwan independence activists who will face criminal prosecution by Chinese authorities for their efforts to protect the island’s democratic rule, Hong Kong-based newspaper Ta Kung Pao reported on Sunday.

Hu Xijin, editor of China’s state-run Global Times, complained about Americans “arrogantly” challenging him on the Internet and railed against the “overconfidence of some U.S. elites” in an editorial on Thursday.

“I don’t know. What I can say for certain is that I’m not yet ready to abandon the possibility of America — not just for the sake of future generations of Americans but for all of humankind,” he wrote.

Iran’s supreme leader mocked the ongoing U.S. presidential election on Wednesday, claiming the vote has exposed the true nature of “U.S. democracy.”

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police arrested seven people Sunday over scuffles that broke out in the city’s legislature during a faceoff between pro-democracy and pro-Beijing lawmakers earlier this year.

A poll of a selection of U.S. voters found 56 percent of respondents said they expect to see “an increase in violence as a result of the election” amongst other reservations about the election results just weeks before Election Day.

Former President Barack Obama argued Monday the nature of American democracy itself was at stake in the 2020 election, not just the political future of his former Vice President Joe Biden.

China’s state-run Global Times editorialized on Tuesday that a “major cyber governance revolution” is needed to counter evolving online threats.

On his last day in Taiwan, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar visited the shrine of former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui.

Thousands of people gathered on Saturday in Bangkok to demand Thai Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-o-cha “step down and dissolve the parliament” amid accusations his government’s stringent lockdown measures and “sweeping power” have compromised citizens’ democratic freedoms, local news outlet Coconuts Bangkok reported on Monday.

Over 600,000 votes were cast in Hong Kong primary elections for pro-democracy candidates over the weekend, a turnout over three times as large as expected, given the climate of repression on the island after Beijing imposed a “national security” law that effectively criminalized political opposition. Organizers of the opposition primary hailed the turnout as a “miracle” of defiance.

Communist China’s oppressive security law for Hong Kong was imposed over the weekend and led to arrests almost immediately as pro-democracy demonstrators flooded the streets.

An impressive array of more than 500 prominent world leaders, academics, and Nobel Laureates have written “A Call to Defend Democracy” in the face of a worldwide rise in government authoritarianism during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Sweden’s supreme administrative court has upheld an order for a Muslim youth group to repay government grants after it was ruled to not “respect the ideas of democracy”.

Hong Kong police arrested 53 protesters on Tuesday evening in demonstrations attended by hundreds of activists to mark the one-year anniversary of the city’s pro-democracy movement, Reuters reported.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen wrote a Facebook post on Thursday commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. She described June 4 as a day the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thinks it can erase from the calendar.

Chinese state media outlets have been bursting with criticism for President Donald Trump during the current round of riots, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also tossed a few bricks at former President Barack Obama and his Democrat Party, needling them for doing little about racial issues and touting China’s efforts to care for its poor and disenfranchised as vastly superior to the Democrats’ half-hearted socialism.

HONG KONG (AP) – Hong Kong police fired tear gas and a water cannon at protesters in a popular shopping district on Sunday, as thousands took to the streets to march against China’s proposed tough national security legislation for the city.

HONG KONG (AP) — The last British governor of Hong Kong said China has betrayed the semi-autonomous territory by tightening control over the city it had promised could keep freedoms not found on the mainland.

HONG KONG (AP) – The United States condemned the arrests of at least 14 veteran pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on charges of joining massive anti-government protests last year, saying the police action jeopardizes a high degree of autonomy guaranteed the southern Chinese city.

A Hungarian MEP writes: the paramount concern of European citizens is the right to remain alive, but only Hungary is attacked for the lockdown.

Reuters on Friday reported on a poll that showed support growing for the pro-democracy protest movement in Hong Kong, even as the coronavirus epidemic makes it extremely difficult for them to hold protest rallies.

TEL AVIV – Israeli voters took to the ballots Monday for the third time in a year with the hopes of breaking a political deadlock and seeing the formation of a 23rd Knesset. 

President Donald Trump addressed an enormous cheering crowd with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India on Monday, praising his host country’s progress and economic success.