The decision not to get vaccinated against coronavirus is a personal one, a matter of individual freedom. But the fact that not everyone sees it this way shows the extent to which the pandemic has politicized the private sphere.
Tag: freedom
? Hyvää huomenta!* Welcome to Tuesday, where North Korea conducts its third weapon tests in just over two weeks, R&B singer R. Kelly is found guilty of sex trafficking, and an unearthed John Lennon tape is up for auction in Denmark. Meanwhile, we take a look at why despite being an oil- and gas-rich country, […]
People used social media to help organize the large, anti-government protests that took place on the island last July. And yet, unlike their counterparts in China, Cuban authorities are loath to prohibit access to such sites. Do the math.
The Librairie du Tiers monde, which has functioned as an important intellectual spot in Algeria since its founding in 1964, continues to have an open and critical outlook on the country, even at a time when power represses dissidents.
The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets off youth groups to enforce lockdowns and wants to control the ‘demand’ for oxygen cylinders.
Proposals to ban smoking on private balconies are led by activists trying to modify citizen’s lifestyles and fight ‘ideologically different phenomena,’ even when the real harm of these divergent behaviors is negligible.
The Schengen Area is not a “sieve” that lets migrants in but, as recent events have shown, it is not a fortress either. The fundamental rights of individuals will always prevail over security requirements.
In addition to coronavirus-related deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) recorded 42 murders of journalists and media workers since the beginning of 2020 in targeted attacks, bombings and shootings.
PARIS — Like much of the rest of the world, Sweden is now facing a second wave of coronavirus infections. But while other countries are debating which mix of restrictions to reinstate, the Swedish government has finally decided to announce its very first ban: closing bars and restaurants after 10:30 pm starting tomorrow. As a […]
Concurrent emergencies have given rise to ‘exceptional’ measures that then have a tendency of being institutionalized.
Though it may undermine free speech, Ethiopians seem accepting of government-ordered Internet shutdowns to curb rioting fomented online.
After months of quiet amid the COVID-19 crisis, Hong Kong demonstrators attended an unauthorized rally this weekend to protest Beijing’s proposed security law that would tighten China’s control over the island territory. Police repeatedly fired tear gas,
Like the entire story of his life, Nelson Mandela’s release from Victor Verster Prison exactly 30 years ago helped define the 20th century. Having served 27 years for leading the opposition to South Africa’s racist system of Apartheid, his release brought to an end white minority rule. Four years later, Mandela would be elected president as the nation sought to find peace and reconciliation after decades of oppression. But it was his release on February 11, 1990 became the iconic moment marking the change. After nearly three decades behind bars between Robben Island, Pollsmoor Prison and Victor Verster Prison, the […]
The editor of Mada Masr, a Worldcrunch partner publication based in Cairo, explains how they wound up making news itself last month.
The controversy over France’s Decathlon athletic hijab is a symbol for misunderstood secularism. Let’s leave the regulation of clothing to those who practice it so well, from Saudi Arabia to the Taliban.
There is much to admire about Germany’s nearly 70-year-old constitution. But it also contains a serious flaw.
MOSCOW — On April 13, a Russian court decreed an immediate blocking of the app Telegram across the country. The decision came after the refusal of Telegram to provide Russian security services with access to users’ private messages. The authorities said it was a necessity in the fight against terrorist threats. However, Pavel Durov, founder […]
-OpEd- PARIS — While leafing through the newspapers in an English pub last weekend, I was surprised to see The Sunday Times, hardly a tabloid, portraying the three fiercest Brexiters as “musketeers.” A rather flattering image assuming Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg — the three men in question — are not offended by […]
-OpEd- PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced his determination to take on so-called fake news, false pieces of information that are published in the media to reinforce a political agenda or a school of thought, can mislead public opinion, and can even change the way people vote. Macron has talked of controlling the […]
The attachment to autocracy prevails over the current appreciation of the state of democracy. Still tottering, to be sure.
Safe from the disapproving eyes of their families, women writers gather secretly in Jalalabad to immerse themselves in poetry.
Writers, artists, journalists and others fleeing oppression in Turkey are settling in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin. But the dream is always to go back home.
Libération, July 24, 2017 Leading French daily Libération showed its support for embattled Turkish opposition daily Cumhuriyet, as a trial gets underway for 17 journalists and staff members on charges of aiding a terrorist organization. The front page for this special Libération with Cumhuriyet edition features a cartoon — a meaningful choice of expression in […]
-Essay- Does anyone even read Henry David Thoreau anymore? Today, July 12, marks the 200th anniversary of the American poet and philosopher’s birth. And much is being said and written about him — not all of it flattering. His work is “anecdotal,” some say. Or “irrelevant,” “juvenile” even. To answer the initial question, I do. […]
Exploitation of so much data by artificial intelligence could lead to the automatic evaluation of individual employee performance.
-Analysis- PARIS — Someone, somewhere will probably call this fake news. Reporters Sans Frontières, a Paris-based organization for the protection of journalists and free expression, released its latest annual World Press Freedom Index this morning, and … little good news to report. The Index, which tracks criteria like harassment and violence against journalists and laws […]
It wasn’t long ago that Turkey was a nation envied around the world for growing freedoms and a growing economy. Things have changed fast.
The Facebook founder’s recent self-important manifesto reads like comedy, until we see how it pushes us toward a different kind of authoritarianism.
When I told the guy at my neighborhood grocery store in the Turkish city of Istanbul that I was traveling abroad, he said, “Don’t come back. Not if you can.” I told him I have a life here. “They will arrest us all, one day,” he responded. I’d never previously discussed politics with my grocer. […]
BANDA ACEH — The cafe is packed with men sitting in front of their third cup of coffee. They chat and smoke kreteks — a type of local clove cigarettes. The lighthearted mood is suddenly interrupted by the sound of the café’s metal shutters being slid downward. The conversation dies, the expressions grow frightened. The […]
PARIS — How can we surf the web without using Google, Amazon or Facebook? French group Framasoft, which promotes the use of open-source software, offers a way. Under the “De-google-ify internet” initiative, the group uses decentralized software solutions to design tools that allow consumers to retake control of their data. Members of Framasoft are strong […]
Germany was already clashing over the country’s recent migrant crisis. Now, the nationalist PEGIDA group is playing with fire by using the Islamist terror attack to justify its extremist positions.
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What Now For Charlie Hebdo?
PARIS — The odd collection of people visiting the building today includes cartoonists and anti-bomb experts. Also in attendance is the new director of Charlie Hebdo, Riss, whose right arm has been in a sling since one of the bullets fired by the Kouachi brothers shattered his shoulder blade before coming out behind his shoulder. […]
-OpEd- BOGOTA — Skokie is a mostly Jewish district outside of Chicago, Illinois. In 1977, the far-right National Socialist Party of America decided to organize a march there, which the scandalized residents, including thousands of Holocaust survivors, naturally sought to stop, arguing it would incite hatred and lead to violence. But the ACLU, the American […]
PARIS — Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner instructed her Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman, who happened to be in Paris this past weekend, to skip Sunday’s march to honor the victims of last week’s terror attacks, Buenos Aires daily Clarín reports. The march, which followed the deadly Jan. 7 attack on the Paris-based satirical weekly […]
After the Paris attacks, French authorities are looking for new tools to combat terrorism. But the risk is high for undermining basic democratic liberties.
There’s always a clever argument – security, stability, secularism – to put rule of law and democracy on hold. But denying human rights is a certain recipe for destruction.
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The Last Temptation Of Pyongyang
A visit to North Korea reveals fears about the Internet’s pernicious influence on youth, but also a big push in computer science training. The market economy calls, but ‘social control’ is at risk.
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What Brazil Owes Its Indigenous Aikewara
A Brazilian Justice Ministry committee has officially apologized and offered reparations to the Aikewara, decimated in the early 1970s by army soldiers. But one more step is still needed.
The country’s old imperialist ambitions are back. If you are inside or outside, and trying to understand Vladimir Putin’s 21st century Russia, keep that in mind in making your calculations.