The Decline of Poland’s Press Freedom should serve as a Warning to all of Europe

Linus Hoeller, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism Historical overview of the region’s democratization and backsliding When the “communist” dictatorships of Eastern Europe fell, one by one, in 1989 – and, with the exception of Romania, in a remarkably peaceful fashion – western euphoria was great. These countries and their people, newly “liberated” from their…

Nuclear-armed and with Millions in Poverty: Former British Colony at the Brink of Collapse

Linus HoellerNorthwestern UniversityReporting on the ground from the nation’s third-largest city, Chicago Nearly three weeks after an eventful election in the former British colony known formally as the United States of America, the incumbent far-right president D. Trump has yet to concede to his victorious centrist challenger J. Biden, calling about an unprecedented democratic crisis….

Unrest & Protests across the U.S. as outrage over George Floyd Police Killing escalates: an Overview

Protests and riots erupted in countless U.S. cities for the fourth night following the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed, black American. One of the police officers involved in the killing, who had been seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck while he begged for forgiveness and said “I can’t breathe,” has since been charged with third-degree…

Xinjiang: China’s Systematic “Brainwashing” and “Horrific Abuses” of Uighur Minority Confirmed by recent Leaks

By Linus Hoeller Title Image: Documents taken from www.nytimes.com Over one million Uighurs have been placed in high-security re-education facilities by Chinese authorities, the United Nations estimate. A Muslim minority of around ten million people in western China’s Xinjiang province, the Uighurs are the target of a systematic campaign by the central government to re-shape…

Bulgaria – A Pressing Issue for the EU’s Press Freedom

Europe is the “freest” continent according to most indices and rankings, including Freedom House’s new 2019 “Freedom in the World” report. Though two countries – Serbia and, as the only EU country, Hungary – were downgraded from “free” to “partly free” this year (mainly for government-sanctioned intimidation and legal steps against opposition), the overwhelming majority…