Derechos Humanos / Human Rights

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has published the "Captive Nations Update 2018" annual report, including a short briefing about each one of the countries where their peoples are victims of Communism or derivative totalitarian regimes, such as the so-called "XXI Century Socialism".

The United States officially recognizes the struggle of those nations held captive by "Socialist" or Communist tyrannies. Since the time that President Eisenhower published the first Captive Nations Week proclamation, most of the countries named in the original law have achieved independence and are now democratic and free. But there are still too many other nations suffering cruel totalitarian regimes.

It is important to recognize their struggle and continue to support these countries, with the hope that one day they will finally shake off the shackles of servitude.

Captive Nations Update 2018

July 16.– The US "2018 Captive Nations Week Proclamation" affirms the importance of freedom from communist oppression for the purpose of international peace and stability.

He keeps losing roles for speaking in support of the Tibetan religious leader

From 'American Gigolo' through 'Pretty Woman,' the actor was at the top of studio A-lists, but speaking up passionately in defense of Tibet has taken him down the indie road that has led to two new films and the best reviews of his career.

Hollywood, July 16.– When Richard Gere walked the red carpet at the Academy Awards in 1993, there was no way he could have known that the night would have repercussions for his career more than 20 years later. Invited to present the award for best art direction, he skipped the scripted patter to protest China's occupation of Tibet and its "horrendous, horrendous human rights situation." The late Gil Cates, the show's producer, was furious, calling the political speeches at that year's awards show —Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins also went off script to speak on behalf of Haitian refugees — "distasteful and dishonest" and vowing to ban all three from future Oscars broadcasts.

Undaunted, Gere, a long-standing friend of Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, didn't stop speaking out. In 2008, he called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, and he continues to support the cause through his two foundations, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet and The Gere Foundation in New York. Not surprisingly, he has been banned for life from China.

But now that Hollywood is cozying up ever closer to the authoritarian superpower, and studios are careful not to offend the government that oversees what has become the world's second-biggest box-office market, the star also is paying a price. 

The Cuban Government has encouraged for more than half a century an economy of dependency that requires the freebies and subsidies of other countries for their livelihood, while the country barely manages to produce a fraction of the net proceeds achieved during the Republican era and the people subsist on poverty wages averaging less than one dollar per day. The following report has been drafted in Cuba by journalists who are constantly harassed and often jailed.

The new "Economic Society of Enemies of the Country"

While in Havana the irrational silence of the dictatorship continued on the specific causes that provoked the air tragedy of May 18, and at a time that the heavy rains from tropical storm Alberto devastated homes and flooded thousands of hectares of crops, the new “President” Miguel Diaz-Canel decided to leave the disaster behind to go with his wife to Venezuela in support of dictator Nicolás Maduro.

And the latter, mocking his own people who are now hungry and without medication, sent thousands of cans of tuna, mattresses and other equipment to the island for those affected by the storm Alberto, thus unleashing a wave of condemnation of Maduro by the Venezuelans.

For his part, the president of the country that right now is massively intervening in Venezuela, accused Washington for his “attempts” to intervene in that country. At that very moment, a plane with 100 Venezuelan high officers landed in Cuba to receive training on how to repress their compatriots and how to avoid a military uprising against Maduro who, in turn, have been arresting hundreds of officers while thousands of enlisted men are resigning or defecting from the armed forces.

Yangon, June 6.– Myanmar and U.N. agencies signed an agreement Wednesday that could lead to the return of some of the 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled brutal persecution by the country’s security forces and are now crowded into makeshift camps in Bangladesh.

The memorandum of understanding promises to establish a “framework of cooperation” that aims to create conditions for “voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable” repatriation of Rohingya refugees.