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NL 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 [...]
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 [...]
Europe's future in the hands of the Western Balkans
Source: Shutterstock It was not to be missed, the NATO summit in The Hague last week. With security on high alert in The Hague, tensions in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, there was plenty to discuss around the forums. Besides the 5% NATO standard, it was reiterated that Russia is the biggest threat to NATO countries. [...]
Campaign training in the Caucasus
"We are broke, exhausted and frustrated." The participants of Georgia's annual Progressive Academy for Social Change do not mince words when I, as an FMS trainer, ask how they are doing. More than six months after Georgia's elections were unfair and large-scale protests broke out, they are through. The ruling party [...]
Statement by PD (Italy), Socialdemokraterna (Sweden) and Labour Party on the situation in Georgia
The FMS was part of this visit and therefore publishes this statement on this website. The statement has also been shared (in English) on the pages of the above parties. We, the Italian Partito Democratico, Swedish Socialdemokraterna and Dutch Partij van de Arbeid, express our deep and growing concern over the accelerating erosion of democracy [...]
Opinion: Georgia drifts towards autocracy, and towards Putin
This piece was originally published in the Trouw and was written by Ties Huis in 't Veld, international secretary of the Labour Party. The FMS was part of this trip to Georgia, and is therefore also sharing Ties' experiences on our website. 'Are you going to report?' During my recent visit to Georgia [...]
Belarus Stamps Social Democratic Party as 'Extremist' in Unprecedented Step
In a historic and worrying escalation of political repression, the Belarusian Interior Ministry on 7 May 2025 officially classified the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada), or BSDP, as an "extremist formation". It is the first time since the country's independence that a legally registered democratic opposition party has been classified in this way. [...]
"The Belarusian revolution is not over - we are still in the middle"
Organisers and members of the liquidated party BSDP-Hramada in The Hague, March 2025 Last Thursday and Friday, March 27 and 28, FMS had the pleasure of hosting the chairman and vice-chairman of the liquidated social democratic party BSDP-Hramada. The liquidated BSDP-Hramada (from here on 'Hramada') was founded in 1991 and has been operating from exile since 2023, when [...]
Ukraine and the redefinition of sovereignty
Source: FMT In the week of 14 March 2022, a few weeks after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Time Magazine published an issue entitled The Return of History. This was a clear reference to Francis Fukuyama's famous work The End of History and the Last Man, in which he argued that liberal democracy after the fall of the [...]