Global Voices is an international community of bloggers who report on blogs and citizen media from around the world. Learn why »
Are Russia's members of parliament, who have fostered a climate of homophobia over the past year, to blame for a man tortured to death by drunk hooligans in Volgograd?
A prominent Chinese law professor recently revealed in his microblog on popular Twitter-like site Sina Weibo that the Chinese government has imposed a policy on university professors instructing them not to teach seven subjects, including freedom of the press, past mistakes of the communist party, and human rights.
Six Twitter users have been sentenced to a year in prison each by a Bahrain court today for allegedly insulting King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on the micro-blogging site.
When Vladislav Surkov left the government last week, it triggered an avalanche of speculation about what the loss of “the grey cardinal” means for Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev in particular and his “liberal” political clan in general. At the center of an ongoing related police probe is Duma Deputy and anti-Putin protest movement leader Ilya Ponomarev, who earned a surprising $750,000 for his work for the Skolkovo innovation center.
The Senegalese government expelled Chadian journalist and blogger Makaila Nguebla on May 8, 2013, sending him to Guinea. He explained his situation in an interview with Global Voices' Anna Guèye.
On May 25, Ukraine will once again attempt to hold its first gay pride parade ever. The previous attempt failed a year ago, when the event was cancelled shortly before it was to begin and one of its organizers was beaten by a group of masked men. Judging from the online reactions that began to appear as soon as the upcoming Equality March was announced, things may not go very smoothly this year as well.
China's one-child policy is once again under scrutiny after mainland media revealed that famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou might have fathered seven children. Frustrated netizens thronged to social media, seizing upon the case as yet another example that privilege is what it takes for one in China to flout laws and regulations.
However you want to define it – principles, a moral code, character – ethics boils down to doing the right thing. With Trinidad and Tobago falling to the number 80 ranking in Transparency International‘s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, a few local bloggers have been discussing the issue of integrity.
Bulgarian citizens will have to make some difficult choices as they go to the polls on May 12, 2013, to vote in the parliamentary election. Nevena Borisova reports.
On the heels of a landmark corruption case in Brazil that saw former members of ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's government convicted of participating in a vote-buying scheme, a proposed constitutional amendment in Brazil would hand over much of the investigative powers of the public prosecutors' office, which prosecuted that case, to police.
To mark the tragic anniversary of the Tivoli incursion and the lives that were lost there, Jamaican bloggers are uniting to draw attention to the scourge of extra-judicial killings in Jamaica and a police force seemingly out of control and beyond restraint.
Active Voice is gearing up to comment on police brutality for Blog Action Day next week.
A South Korean LGBT rights group, Rainbow Action, staged a protest at Seoul Plaza on May 17, 2013, calling on the government to pass the anti-discrimination law. A video of the protest was posted on the Youtube.
Hong Wrong rounded up Hong Kong citizens’ responses to the city's security chief's comment on the soaring of rape cases. The police head, Lai Tung-Kwok, told women to cut down on drinking in a press conference.
Yueran Zhang from Tea Leaf Nation reviews the Chinese petition system and discusses directions for future reform:
Ongoing reforms should include the enhancement of the institutional powers of bureaus of letters and visits. On the other hand, the citizens flooding the petitioning offices, which are considered a last resort, reveal the ineffectiveness of other channels for hearing complaints and grievances. Enhancement and clarification of the roles of the People’s Congress, NGOs, the arbitration system and the judiciary branch could lessen the burden on the petitioning system.
Ukrainian blogger Olena Bilozerska's User Winner prize in the Bobs 2013 Best Blog Ukrainian nomination has been revoked, writes [ru] Mustafa Nayyem, the Ukrainian member of the Bobs 2013 jury, on his Facebook page, linking [ru] to the official statement [uk] posted on the Bobs 2013 website. The scandal (more on it in this GV text) seems far from being over in Ukraine, however, as many netizens are displeased with the decision. Nayyem's Facebook announcement has generated over 150 comments so far, many of them critical of the contest organizers in general and Nayyem in particular. In one of the few English-language comments in that thread, Andreas Umland, a Kyiv-based German political scientist, writes:
Online journalism and news portals are gaining popularity in Nepal as evident in Surath Giri's list of 20 online newspapers. However, according to reports, the Ministry of Information and Communications of Nepal has recently formed a five-member committee to register, regulate and manage online news.
Clothes are a shield from the eyes of the unclean. So when a women must...
This site is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. Please read our attribution policy to learn about freely redistributing our work.
Based on the Wikipedia list of countries, details.
RSS feed for Law 
Hi, "Black Heart." Not sure I follow your meaning. Is your second sentence paraphrasing the...
What? A persons private sexual preference is unacceptable (who cares, and why would you)...