New data from a global rights-tracking project shows the country had large declines in 2025 on 8 of the 9 civil and political rights it measures.
Articles on Civil liberties
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President Donald Trump and his supporters cast their domestic opponents as disloyal, traitorous or worse, rather than seeing dissent as part of democracy.
Banning abortion instantly oppresses a huge swath of society. And enforcing abortion bans begets a police state − an upside for dictators from Mussolini to Ortega.
Since entering office, the Labour government has further tightened restrictions on the right to protest.
The 2025 election will primarily serve to legitimise President Samia Suluhu’s new mandate.
Government agencies are contracting with Palantir to correlate disparate pieces of data, promising efficiency but raising civil liberties concerns.
The US is swinging like a pendulum between more autocratic and more democratic forms of government. How long will this destabilizing pattern last?
Legal experts see a current lawsuit against the environmental group Greenpeace as a classic example of using litigation to stifle public criticism.
New Zealand generally compares well on global measures of freedom, happiness and transparency. But rankings in some important areas have been sliding for years now.
There’s been a gradual erosion of democratic rights and liberties in the island of Mauritius.
Key freedoms for US citizens against excessive government power are contained in the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution.
New Zealand was mostly stable in key international rankings and domestic socio-economic measures. But there are signs of slippage in some areas and not enough progress in others.
When US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, he paved the way for the incarceration of Japanese Americans on the mainland and Hawaii
Former president Bourguiba’s standing as father of Tunisian feminism has come under scrutiny.
Racialized and marginalized populations whose protest movements are already subject to ongoing forms of monitoring, infiltration and pre-emptive police action are at risk from the convoy crisis.
Bad laws, political tribalism and cancel culture – philosopher Arthur Prior was describing similar things in the 1950s, and his challenge is just as relevant today.
If a vaccination certificate becomes mandatory for work and other activities, does that mean vaccination is effectively mandatory too?
If it sounds like the law is all over the place on school mask mandates, that’s because it is. The nation’s schools are subject to a complex web of local, state and federal laws.
A privacy expert says citizens will need to exercise their right to public protest if they want to preserve their privacy.
The pandemic has exposed inequalities in society. There is concern that tying freedoms to vaccinations may further disadvantage vulnerable groups.
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Professor of Law, University of Waikato
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Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
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Lecturer in Mathematics, Monash University
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Senior Research Associate, Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law School, UNSW
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Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Manchester Metropolitan University
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Adjunct professor, Edith Cowan University
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Sessional Academic, School of Social Sciences, Macquarie University
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Reader in Journalism, City St George's, University of London
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Associate Professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University
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Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media, University of Sydney
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Professor of International Affairs, Penn State
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Assistant professor, KIMEP University
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Vice-Chancellor and President, University of Canberra
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Lecturer and Teacher, Department of Politics and International Relations, Cardiff University