| --- |
| title: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12) (HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_019295)" |
| source: "House Oversight: Estate Documents (Nov 12)" |
| sourceUrl: "https://www.justice.gov/epstein" |
| date: "2026-01-01" |
| category: "House Oversight" |
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| --- |
| |
| Freedom House |
| To human rights organizations: Human rights groups |
| operating from the safety of democracies should be |
| more aggressive in publicizing the plight of political |
| prisoners. The defense of jailed dissidents was a major |
| factor behind the rise of the modern human rights |
| movement. Political prisoners became a lower priority |
| as their numbers declined after the Cold War, but |
| today there are more than a thousand in China alone, |
| and many others in Venezuela, Iran, Azerbaijan, and |
| elsewhere. It is past time for the phrase "prisoner of |
| conscience" to again become an important part of our |
| regular political vocabulary. |
| Furthermore, human rights organizations need |
| to develop strategies that address the varied and |
| sophisticated methods of repression used by mod- |
| ern authoritarians. There should be better efforts to |
| identify individual perpetrators of abuse, document |
| their culpability, and expose their actions. Among oth- |
| er benefits, such work would feed into governmental |
| mechanisms for imposing sanctions, like the United |
| States Global Magnitsky Human Rights Account- |
| ability Act, which allows visa bans and asset freezes |
| for foreign officials who are personally involved in |
| egregious human rights violations. |
| To the free world: All democratic governments should |
| make support for civil society in authoritarian and |
| illiberal environments a bigger priority. This is espe- |
| cially urgent given that laws and regulations designed |
| to neutralize nongovernmental organizations, which |
| were first adopted by Russia, are now being taken up |
| in countries like Hungary and Poland. |
| Democracies will also have to push back against |
| Chinese censorship. The sheer size of China's econo- |
| my gives Beijing the clout to insist on unreasonable, |
| nonreciprocal, and often antidemocratic concessions |
| from trading partners, the most prominent of which |
| is the state's right to determine what its people can |
| read, watch, or circulate via social media. The Chinese |
| leadership expects the rest of the world to accept its |
| brand of censorship as the normal state of affairs in |
| China, and it is increasingly extending its demands |
| beyond its borders, affecting the information available |
| to global audiences. |
| Chinese censorship practices should be challenged at |
| international forums and in bilateral meetings. Demo- |
| cratic governments should speak out when their own |
| academics, artists, media companies, and corpora- |
| tions are subjected to censorship or blocking by the |
| Chinese authorities. As long as Beijing maintains its |
| current policies, democracies should take measures |
| to prevent their own media, entertainment, and other |
| information-related corporations from falling under |
| the control of Chinese companies that support or |
| benefit from censorship. |
| Finally, the free world must keep faith with states |
| whose democratic goals are under threat from large |
| and aggressive authoritarian powers. A prime example |
| is Ukraine. That country represents the absolute |
| front line in the global struggle for freedom. Building |
| democracy in an inhospitable neighborhood is always |
| difficult, particularly when your most powerful neigh- |
| bor is determined to steal your land and wreck your |
| home. Kyiv has made impressive strides; indeed, it has |
| gone much further along the democratic path than it |
| did after the Orange Revolution in 2005. But it still has |
| hard work ahead, and it remains in serious danger. A |
| positive outcome in Ukraine would not by itself erase |
| the broader gains secured by the world's autocrats |
| over the past decade, but it would be a pivotal defeat |
| for their campaign to sow chaos and disunity among |
| those who still live or aspire to live in freedom. |
| 1. "Big Data, Meet Big Brother: China Invents the Digital Totalitarian State," Economist, December 17, 2016, http://www.economist. |
| com/news/briefing/21711902-worrying-implications-its-social-credit-project-china-invents-digital-totalitarian. |
| 2. Feliz Solomon, "Vladimir Putin Just Signed Off on the Partial Decriminalization of Domestic Abuse in Russia," Time, February 8, |
| 2017, http://time.com/4663532/russia-putin-decriminalize-domestic-abuse/. |
| www.freedomhouse.org |
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