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NL Demonstration in Brussels: Freedom for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ales Bialiatski and all other political prisoners in Belarus
For three years, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ales Bialiatski has been innocently imprisoned in Belarus. On 25 September, in front of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus in Brussels (Belgium), Libereco - Partnership for Human Rights (Libereco) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) urge his release and that of all over 1,300 [...]
Religion and Russian Identity: Implications for Ukraine
The Kubinka Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, source (Wikimedia Commons) This article was written by one of our guest authors and published in English. Would you also like to contribute to the FMS with your analysis on international politics and democratisation? Mail your submission to info@foundationmaxvanderstoel.nl In recent years, the interplay between religion and nationalism [...]
LGBTI inclusion in the Western Balkans on the agenda during EuroPride
Photo: Participants of the training by FMS, Rainbow Rose and Labour at EuroPride in Thessaloniki Although significant progress has been made on LGBTI+ rights in recent decades, the struggle for full equality remains an ongoing challenge. Discrimination, violence and lack of legal protection are still widespread in many parts of the [...]
What does the future hold for Armenia?
Last week, the first of a series of trainings took place in Armenia, with the Max van der Stoel Foundation partnering with the SD Platform Armenia. The SD Platform has been doing important work for several years to motivate young people across the country to bring about political change from the bottom up. With its 'Future Factory' programme [...]
The fate of dissident Mikhail Krieger
Mikhail Krieger during an interrogation (Source: Antonina Favorskaya / Sota / Moscow Times) A Russian-Ukrainian anti-war activist recounts his life behind bars in his correspondence. For two posts on social media, he was sentenced to seven years in a penal camp. Miсhail Krieger was born in 1960 in Dniepropetrovsk - now Dnipro - in Ukraine's Soviet republic. [...]
'A mood of hope and anger' in Georgia as 'foreign agent law' passed by parliament
Photo: Graffiti in Tbilisi in April-May 2024 (source: Jelger Groeneveld, Flickr) On 3 June, the infamous law on foreign agents was officially passed by the Georgian parliament. A final attempt to stop the law by Saloma Zourabichvili, Georgia's EU-friendly president, was rejected by the Georgian Dream parliamentary majority. The [...]
The West and Russia after the war
Statues in Moscow's Red Square of former Soviet leaders (Source: Pixabay) What on earth should we do with Russia when the war in Ukraine is over? Whatever the outcome of that war (Ukraine wins, an unsatisfactory peace deal or Russia still wins), we will have to relate to a country in Europe that has been a [...]
The tragic fate of Nikolai Statkevich
Nikolay Statkevich is chairman of the Belarus-banned social democratic party Narodnaya Gromada. A few months before the falsified 2020 presidential elections, the politician was kidnapped in broad daylight by the KGB secret service. After a year and a half in pre-trial detention, he was sentenced to 14 years in a monster trial against several opposition members in December 2021. Initially, [...]
Protests after proposed renewed 'foreign agents' law in Georgia
Photo: Georgian flags in the capital Tbilisi. Source. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the Georgian capital Tbilisi in recent days to protest against the reintroduction of a notorious 'foreign agents' law. The law was proposed on 3 April by Georgia's ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party and is a slightly modified version of a law [...]
Fraudulent elections in Belarus: continued support for opposition and political prisoners essential
"A senseless farce" is how Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya described the recent local and parliamentary elections in her country. Only parties swearing allegiance to dictator Lukashenka were allowed to run, the opposition in exile called for a boycott. They were the first elections since the highly controversial 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko ran for a sixth term [...]
