Togo
For two decades, President Faure Gnassingbé has led the country toward authoritarianism and economic ruin. Protests, banned since 2022, erupted in June 2025 over a cost-of-living crisis, the regime’s increasing crackdown on dissent, and a package of constitutional reforms that ended presidential elections and installed Gnassingbé as premier with expanded powers and no term limits. Farida Bemba Nabourema is a Togolese human-rights activist and writer. The English translation of her book Melancholies of the Oppressed was released on August 18 and is excerpted below:
When I began my activism, I was still a teenager. My gaze was fixed on the horizon. I was full of ideals and certainties. I believed that commitment was a straight line, that being right was enough to guarantee victory. I had read dozens of books on revolutions, studied strategies, dissected history, convinced that knowledge was sufficient armor. I wanted freedom for my country; I wanted to see Togo break the chains of the Gnassingbé dynasty, this cruel regime that was squeezing my people’s throats like an iron vice. But naivety is a luxury that is quickly stripped away in combat.
I grew up in a country where you couldn’t say the dictator’s name without fear of reprimand. A country where public-school children were dragged out of their classrooms to form honor guards for a tyrant we hadn’t chosen, our parents hadn’t chosen, but who ruled our lives like a master over his slaves. I grew up with fear — the kind that creeps into homes like toxic smoke, stifling conversation and preventing people from dreaming out loud. And then, one day, that fear stopped having a hold on me. I decided to fight.
Like many young activists, I believed that fighting was a matter of courage, that the greatest gift one could give to one’s country was one’s own life. Dying for freedom seemed an honor to me, death the ultimate sacrifice that would sanctify our struggle.
But I didn’t know that there was something worse than death.
There is defeat after several failed attempts at resistance.
There is the dismay of seeing the people you are fighting for look away, preferring silence to action and submission to risk.
There is the contempt of those you want to protect, their indifference, sometimes their hostility.
There is the endless fatigue of shouting into the void, of fighting against a wall of inertia, of understanding that chains are held in place not only by the strength of the oppressors but also by the passive acceptance of those who wear them.
And that is when the soul falters.
There comes a moment in the life of every activist when you stop seeing your people as mere victims. The awakening is brutal. You realize that if oppression is a thousand-headed hydra, some of those heads are growing on the very body of the people you thought you were defending.
The people are not monolithic. There are those who suffer, those who wait, those who resign themselves, and those who collaborate. Those who pray for your failure because your victory would reveal their own cowardice. Those who call you stupid, who look down on you, who whisper among themselves that you are lost in a futile cause.
And no one prepares us for this.
No one teaches us to resist the wounds that come not from the enemy but from those who should be on our side. No one tells us that sometimes loneliness will be our only companion, that abandonment will be sharper than any blade. We find ourselves lost, wandering between rage and doubt, trying to understand where we went wrong.
Activism not only leaves marks on the soul; it also alters the body. Insomnia becomes a way of life. Constant tension wears the heart down. Fear, even when we think we have overcome it, lurks in the shadows. We become paranoid, distrustful, unable to let our guards down. Exhaustion becomes chronic; stress gnaws at our bones. Our nerves become electric wires, always ready to snap under pressure.
I have experienced nights of despair when my body refused to get up, when my mind was too broken to form a coherent thought. I have experienced those moments when you wonder if the fight is still worth it, if you are not simply burning yourself out for a cause that does not want you.
But there is something inexplicable in the heart of the activist. A force that is both dark and luminous, a drive that overcomes fatigue and transcends despondency.
China
Human-rights lawyer Xie Yang was arrested in January 2022 on charges of subversion after publicly supporting a teacher who had been forced into a mental hospital for questioning official government narratives. After 1,295 days in custody, Xie’s trial began on 30 July 2025. This was Xie’s second arrest, the first as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s “709 crackdown” in 2015, when it rounded up more than three-hundred human-rights lawyers and activists. Chen Guiqiu, Xie’s ex-wife, posted a message on X on July 27, translated by China Change and excerpted below:
It has now been ten years since the 709 crackdown. In that time, Xie Yang has been arrested twice, spending a total of five and a half years in detention so far.
For those who have never experienced it, it is almost impossible to grasp the toll those five and a half years — spent under residential surveillance and in detention centers — took on his body, mind, and spirit. Nor can they easily imagine what it takes to survive such endless days and nights, stripped of sunlight, enduring each second as it crawls by.
The Changsha Public Security Bureau, along with its First and Second Detention Centers, the Municipal Procuratorate, the Changsha No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, and the Supreme People’s Court, have together operated as a vast, bloodthirsty apparatus, tearing into Xie Yang, a human-rights lawyer who bravely defended Falun Gong practitioners, dispossessed villagers, and individuals arbitrarily diagnosed as mentally ill. They prolonged his torment through beatings, handcuffs and shackles on his feet, forced stripping and humiliation, calculated provocation, and obstruction of his legal counsel. During the detention over the last two and half years, they issued no fewer than twelve notices to again and again delay court hearings on his case, an ongoing assault on the limits of human endurance.
You must stop now!
Over these ten years, what have you truly gained beyond the animalistic thrill of tormenting Xie Yang? Behind those snarling grins and bared fangs, is there not even a flicker of reverence left for human life? When you return home, do your wives and children still smell the blood you forgot to wipe from your lips?
You are nothing but beasts.
Imprisoning Xie Yang was not enough for you — you never stopped trying to tear our family apart. . . . Under the guise of friendly visits, you threatened my elderly father; you obsessively eavesdropped on our WeChat calls and screenshotted our private conversations. You even weaponized people close to me, using them to invent lies and slander my name.
You are despicable beyond measure. . . . You must stop now. . . .
You will conduct your secret trial behind closed doors. Tell me, who is this performance for? Do you have even a shred of respect for the lawyers present? Even a trace of reverence for the law itself? You wield power in the name of the people, yet in practice you destroy them, for the sake of profit and power. Was this what you signed up for when you entered this path? Was it to one day gorge on the blood and flesh of the very people you once aspired to serve?
You must stop now! . . .
When you return home, how can you face your wives and children in peace? How do you sleep without torment, in the dead of night? The blood on your hands is not yet washed clean, yet in your hearts, you are already plotting the next assault. Has your conscience already been devoured by the devil? . . .
Serbia
Mass protests have swept the country since November 2024 after a newly renovated concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in Novi Sad. Protesters demand accountability, systemic reform, and an end to corruption. Demonstrations have drawn hundreds of thousands and continue nearly every day. But populist president Aleksandar Vučić and the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) have taken an increasingly hard line, and violent clashes between protesters and police have ramped up since mid-August 2025. Katarina Pantović, a Serbian poet and researcher, wrote this reflection, originally published by PEN/Opp on July 14 and excerpted below:
“Omfg, did you see this??!” A close friend of mine sent me a message with a link to the latest news — concrete canopy of recently renovated main railway station in Novi Sad, second-largest city in Serbia, collapsed onto the busy pavement below. . . . The video of the tragedy seemed surreal, like one of those black-and-white silent movies. It was like watching the world explode on mute.
I sank deep in the armchair. I spent my day refreshing the news, and with each update another victim would be found and dragged out underneath the rubble. By the evening, it was official — fourteen fatalities, three severely injured. One woman died sixteen days later from the severity of her injuries. On 21 March 2025, another person died, a nineteen-year-old man. The only woman who survived is still to this day in hospital, having had the bottom half of her body amputated. She is in her early twenties and is a mother to one child.
My hometown, Belgrade, is a city where demonstrations and protests have become a regular part of one’s life. I guess it’s due to the fact that, no matter the economic progress Serbia’s made over the past decade, there’s still a lot to be dissatisfied about. Unrightful state-media reports, legally questionable and sloppy construction work and investments, political blackmail, an overall decline in culture and education. I was too young, but I clearly remember my parents participating in the 1996–97 demonstrations against Slobodan Milošević. Almost every presidential or parliamentary election ended in protests. . . .
But this time something was different. It started with daily sixteen minutes of silence held in the roadways and streets of Belgrade and Novi Sad as an honor to the sixteen victims, beginning at 11:52 AM, [the time of the collapse]. Soon it spread to other larger cities in Serbia. But when several members of the SNS party violently attacked students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade on November 22 during one of these peaceful commemorations, it was a drop too many: It triggered massive protests which started spreading like fire throughout Serbia, initiated and organized by students, who went into a strike and subsequently blocked around sixty faculty buildings in five university centers: Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Novi Pazar, and Niš. . . . Each day brought something new — attacks, arrests, politicians’ resignations, crucial evidence; analyses, praises, critiques; promises, threats.
To this day, more than 110 cities, municipalities, and villages in Serbia [have] organized protests, which is unprecedented. Every larger city had its hallmark protest led by the students, who made a list of their initial requests for the government: publishing complete Novi Sad railway station renovation documentation, identifying and prosecuting the perpetrators of the attack on the students, dismissing all the charges against arrested students during the protests, raising the university budget by 20 percent. . . .
Students unequivocally stated from the very beginning that they do not want to be associated with any political opposition party and that they are acting independently, as well as that they pursue justice, rule of law, and genuine democracy in Serbia, where nobody [should] get killed due to corruption, ignorance, and overall negligence. Insisting that their fight is the one for humanity, and not about politics, they organized themselves in so-called plenums in which they discussed next steps and plans for actions, practicing direct democracy. But most importantly, they succeeded in what had been almost unimaginable since the 2000s: They motivated broad masses over the course of many consecutive months to, unintimidated, go out in the streets and demand justice and order. They brought different people together and awoke solidarity and empathy, canceling out lethargy and passiveness. These protests served as an inspiration to other countries, such as Turkey, Greece, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Hungary. . . .
Lots of tears of joy were spilled, lots of hugs exchanged, many songs chanted together. It was as if the genie was finally released from a bottle that had been sealed with years of fear and indifference. Because the state is not experienced solely as a formal institution but also as an emotional presence — a persistent influence that dictates our sense of self in this world. This influence acts as symbolic violence: a subtle, often unseen form of power that shapes our thoughts, desires, and emotions. It seeps into everyday life, training us to accept certain norms, social orders, and even injustices as if they were natural or unavoidable. Therefore, resistance isn’t only about opposing laws or government actions, but also about challenging this hidden emotional power that shapes our identities, sense of belonging, and visions of what’s possible. . . .
The student fight was political, and is political, such is every activity in the social field. Perhaps too idealistic, noble, and passionate in its core, has the student initiative turned out to be politically shortsighted and naïve in its hope and resistance to the stiffness and resilience of this regime? Have they taken into account the broader picture of current far-right populist global politics? . . .
[University] faculties have been shut down for seven months now — no lectures or exams, this school year being practically wasted, and the next one being in jeopardy as well. Students themselves are at risk of losing their scholarships and dorms. To anyone outside Serbia this is borderline science fiction, but it fits into Vučić ’s announced plan for privatization of universities perfectly. The bizarre and devastating part is that the initial beautiful and noble fight for justice transformed into a platform that the government utilizes for its own further unethical practices. . . .
For Serbian society, it might take decades and many sacrifices for the system to fundamentally transform. . . . Society has brutally divided in a black-or-white manner. Yes, the world has gone crazy. Tensions in this discriminatory, Manichean surrounding have reached the point of intolerability. The government insists that life has to resume, the students that it has to stop. There are as many questions as there are observations. So what is the endgame? And when does the game end?
Belarus
On 9 August 2020, the long-reigning autocrat Alyaksandr Lukashenka was declared winner of that year’s presidential election. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest the fraudulent outcome, but the regime met the nonviolent demonstrators with a brutal crackdown. Five years later, Lukashenka remains in power, having won another sham election in January 2025. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of the democratic opposition, gave this address at the New Belarus Conference on August 8 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the mass protests. Excerpts follow:
Solidarity and empathy. Courage and discipline. Self-organization and creativity. These are the words I would use to describe 2020.
Five years ago, Belarus changed. Once and for all. I wouldn’t say we became different people, but we awakened qualities in ourselves we hadn’t noticed before.
Indeed, we saw how many of us there were, how diverse we were, and how remarkable we were. . . . That year, for me personally, was a storm of emotions. From confusion and fear — through the terror and the authorities’ reaction — to an incredible inspiration, joy, and pride in our wonderful people.
I take pride in each of you. We have walked these five years together, and we continue forward.
Today we mark five years since the start of our peaceful revolution. And this revolution is not over yet. As long as we stand together and continue the struggle, we have not lost. . . .
It’s no longer 2020. It’s 2025 now. A different year. A different time. But are we different? Have we abandoned our goals? Our principles and values? I think not.
The context of our struggle has changed. There is war and terror. Belarus is wounded, isolated, taken hostage by Russia. And this new reality forces us to think differently. And act differently. Because no one will bring change to Belarus for us.
Of course . . . much depends on Ukraine and its ability to resist. And our task, our duty, is to do everything now to support Ukraine. A possible truce in Ukraine . . . may open a window of opportunity for Belarus as well. And we must be ready for it.
That is why we are here today. . . . A new time requires new forms of struggle. New ideas.
How do we achieve the release of political prisoners? How do we get Belarus out of the war and preserve its independence? How do we strengthen our movement, our agency, our community in the world? How do we support those who continue the struggle inside the country? How do we weaken the regime and bring it to justice? And perhaps most importantly, how do we preserve and revive that energy, the energy of 2020?
Let each and every one of us ask ourselves today: What am I doing for the New Belarus? Can I do it better? And what can we do together?
Dear friends,
We have not yet won, but neither have we lost. And the attention to our conference — from Lukashenka’s special services to Russian propagandists — once again proves how much we stand in their way.
The regime is wrong if it thinks it can intimidate us into capitulation. That will not happen! We will continue our work until we achieve our goals.
Look how many of us there are today. How diverse we are. I am grateful to each of you for not giving up. . . . We are strong because we are diverse. And yes, we may have different positions. That is normal.
What matters most is that we share a single goal we are working toward — a free, independent, and European Belarus.
I wish us all fruitful work!
Long Live Belarus!
El Salvador
On July 31, the Legislative Assembly approved a constitutional amendment that abolishes presidential term limits, extends presidential terms from five to six years, and eliminates runoff elections. In practice, this allows President Nayib Bukele, a popular but polarizing figure who has sought to eliminate any limits to his own power, to seek reelection indefinitely. On August 4, the José Simeón Cañas Central American University put out this message, translated and excerpted below:
These reforms to the constitution, promoted without consultation or debate, ratified within a matter of hours and just before the start of a vacation period, weaken the principles that ensure power is exercised with limits, responsibility, and in service of the common good. A constitutional reform of this kind, which affects the rules of the democratic game, should have been widely discussed, with broad participation.
The possibility of indefinite reelection breaks with one of the most important protections of the constitutional order: preventing the prolonged concentration of power in a single person or group. History clearly shows the risks of going down this path. Contrary to what has been claimed, the prohibition of immediate or indefinite reelection was not an obstacle for the citizenry, but a safeguard against those who might seek to amass more power.
Reelection for an indefinite number of terms does not represent, in any sense, something positive. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has stated that “enabling indefinite presidential reelection is contrary to the principles of a representative democracy” and to the international treaties of which El Salvador is a part. . . .
Likewise, eliminating the presidential runoff undermines the legitimacy of the presidential office by allowing a candidacy to come to power with only minority representation. . . . A second round does not mean disrespect for the popular will; on the contrary, it guarantees it. If the real concern was to avoid wasting public finances, the focus could have been on restoring transparency and accountability, and reactivating oversight mechanisms. . . .
Today, the ruling party has reached the point of no return, both out of desire and out of necessity, to cling to power.
This step has been taken while popularity remains high and resistance to authoritarian drift nearly nonexistent, in a context of fear and lack of protection. A context in which, from a legal standpoint, it is possible to affirm that the rule of law no longer exists: There is no respect for due process, Salvadoran citizens have no right to an independent judge, nor to the free development of their personality, nor to freedom of assembly, association, expression, or information.
The constitution must not be the property of the rulers of the moment, but rather a social pact whose purpose is to create institutional conditions to protect and uphold the rights of the population. The Salvadoran people deserve trustworthy institutions, transparent processes, and real opportunities to decide. With the new constitutional reforms, El Salvador returns to its past — a past of absolute concentration of power in family clans and of deep corruption in public institutions.
Bolivia
General elections took place in August and a runoff presidential election is set for October 19, offering Bolivians a pivotal choice about whether to continue with the ruling populist Movement Toward Socialism, or chart a new course toward institutional reform and economic stabilization. In the run-up to the elections, civil society organizations mobilized to encourage political participation and informed voting, especially among youth. The song “My Vote, My Voice,” composed and performed by Bolivian artists Alwa and Leo Camargo, was the anthem of the campaign. Translated excerpts follow:
Tomorrow without violence. [It] is not just a piece of paper; it is power in your hands. It is respect, it is union, it is sovereignty. . . .
There is crisis, there is noise, there is misinformation, but the vote exists and participation counts.
My vote, my voice, my strength, my honor — it is not a favor. It is building with hope and without fear. Bolivia votes with the heart.
My voice walks with the sun. I carry hope in my drum. The road woke me up. I choose the course with love.
Just one vote is my value. Memory of those who fought for it, from a people still in action. Decide with your heart.
Quechua to Maraní. Creole, Chiquitano, we are here. Afromestizo too. The decision is yours to do good.
I come and bring positive fire, for the cop and for the city dweller. I do not pursue or hate the enemy. I build up, I do not divide. . . .
Universal respect, plural voice. Democracy is a national good. Universal respect, plural voice. Democracy is a national good.
Copyright © 2025 National Endowment for Democracy and Johns Hopkins University Press