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NL International Panel on Gender Equality with Songül Mutluer
The fight for women's rights is not over (by any means). For years, the champions of gender equality have been passing the relay baton to new generations of feminists to continue this struggle. At the PES congress in Amsterdam (16-18 October), a packed panel featured nine of the people who now hold such a relay baton. Among them also [...]
Europe watches Georgian regime use queer panic to shut down country
Photo: Shota Kinchi Queers, traitors, liberalism and Western warmongers - these four horsemen of an oligarch-created apocalypse now form the core of Georgian official ideology. Each has a purpose: queer panic to incite moral outrage, "traitors" to justify repression, and anti-Western rhetoric to undermine democratic aspirations and Moscow [...]
Europe's blind spot: political prisoners and hijacked courts in Georgia
(Source: Wikimedia Commons) Over the past decade, Georgia has undergone a quiet but profound transformation. The country, once considered a democratic frontrunner in the South Caucasus, is now facing an authoritarian backlash that threatens the foundations of its legal system. The ruling party, Georgian Dream (GD), has not only consolidated its power through elections [...]
Syria at a crossroads: hope for democracy or a facade of elections?
Source: Pexels It has been over 10 months since the posters of former dictator Bashar Al Assad were torn down from the streets in the capital Damascus in celebratory fashion. After a gruesome 50 years under the dictatorial rule of the Assad family, in which hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been displaced, murdered, mistreated and scattered across several [...]
Survival by escalation: Dodik's illegal referendum in Republika Srpska
Source: Wikimedia Commons On 25 October, citizens of Republika Srpska (RS), one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), will go to the polls for an unconstitutional referendum. The question put to them is strikingly worded: "Do you accept the decisions of unelected foreigner Christian Schmidt and the unconstitutional rulings [...]
Revival of Arab Social Democratic Women's Union in Sulaymaniyah
Photo: Progressive Alliance On 27 August 2025, a conference of the Social Democratic Alliance in the Arab World (SDA-AW) was held in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The central theme was the re-establishment of the Arab Social Democratic Women Union. On behalf of the Max van de Stoel Foundation, Diandra Monhemius attended. Below is her report: On [...]
Mikola Statkevich: released and re-imprisoned in Belarus
This is a repost of a report from 2023. Back in 2023, we shared a photo report on Mikola Statkevich, prominent political prisoner from Belarus. He was detained after participating in peaceful protests in 2020. Since 2023, he was kept in complete isolation, with no contact with the outside world. Until last Thursday, when Statkevich was released, together [...]
Also come to the commemoration 'Four trees for Belarus'
Tuesday, 16 September 2025 at 11:00 am To everyone who feels involved in the annual commemoration on 16 September at the four trees on the square near Paradijslaan and Zwembadweg. On 16 September, the eighteenth commemoration will take place at four trees planted in Eindhoven in 2008. The trees commemorate [...]
From fear to participation - a Syrian perspective on democracy in the Netherlands
Photo: Ballot paper for the 2017 elections - Wikimedia Commons How do you process experiences from an authoritarian regime in a country that runs on democratic rules of the game? For many people who grew up in Syria, this is not a natural process. In this piece, Syrian journalist Hasan Kaddour describes how mistrust of authority, formed in [...]
Analysis: the Serbian student protests in 2025
This publication and text continues in English - as the FMS conducted this research with an international consortium under Friends of the Western Balkans (FoWB), led by the Foundation of European Progressive Studies (FEPS). Until recently, Generation Z in Serbia was often perceived as apolitical and more immersed in the digital [...]