Freedom House condemns the deportation of three civic leaders and two journalists who were traveling to Angola to attend a civil society conference occurring concurrent with this week's Summit for Heads of State and Government of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and calls upon Angolan authorities to cease their efforts to prevent legitimate civil society participation in activities surrounding the Summit.

Freedom House today launched a web feature presenting its latest special report, 'Promise and Reversal: The Post-Soviet Landscape Twenty Years On,' to mark the 20th anniversary of the failed Soviet coup of August 19, 1991. The feature includes a retrospective essay examining changes in the state of political rights and civil liberties in the former Soviet Union over the last two decades, as well as graphs and rankings that illustrate the region's performance in the annual Freedom House publications Freedom in the World and Freedom of the Press.

Freedom House today called for the repeal of a law on religions recently passed by the Hungarian parliament. At the same time, Freedom House supported concerns raised by15 prominent Hungarians in an open letter to Human Rights Commissioners of the European Commission and the Council of Europe regarding the new law.

Freedom House strongly condemns the sentencing of labor lawyer Natalya Sokolova to six years in prison on spurious charges resulting from her support for striking trade union workers in Kazakhstan and calls for her immediate and unconditional release.

In response to the increasingly grave human rights situation in Syria, Freedom House today joined other human rights groups in sending a letter to President Barack Obama asking that he take a number of concrete actions against the Syrian government, including calling for President Bashar al-Assad's immediate ouster.

Freedom House condemns the detention of prominent Belarusian human rights defender, Ales Bialatski, the Head of the Human Rights Center 'Viasna' and calls for Belarusian authorities to release him immediately.

As Iranians commemorate Journalists' Day on August 8 (17th of Mordad in the Iranian calendar), Iran remains one of world's most dangerous countries for reporters. Freedom House condemns the Iranian regime's ongoing crackdown on journalists and calls for the release of Bahman Ahmadi Amouee and all other journalists who remain unfairly imprisoned.

Freedom House today expresses its outrage at the arrest of former Ukrainian prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and calls for her immediate release. This action, which lacks any credibility in the eyes of the international community or among many Ukrainians, is the latest round in the government's relentless persecution of Tymoshenko and other leading political opponents.

Freedom House condemns the decision by Cuban authorities today to uphold the 15-year prison sentence of U.S. citizen Alan Gross and again calls on for his immediate and unconditional release.

Freedom House today expressed serious concern over a decision by the government of Kazakhstan to return control of its penitentiary system from the civilian Ministry of Justice to the military-controlled Ministry of Internal Affairs. Freedom House joins other civil society and international organizations in calling on authorities to immediately reverse this decision in an effort to promote a fair and balanced penitentiary system that more humanely treats prisoners.

Freedom House calls on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet with local civil society leaders during her upcoming trip to Indonesia, and to urge the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member state governments to respect the human rights of their citizens.

Freedom House condemns the harsh sentences handed down by a provisional judge in an Ecuadorian court on July 20 against three executives of independent newspaper El Universo and journalist Emilio Palacio.

Freedom House strongly condemns the ongoing crackdown on demonstrators and journalists protesting the political and economic climate in Malawi and calls upon the government to cease these attacks and to instead engage in a peaceful dialogue to address their legitimate concerns.

Freedom House is concerned that HR 2583, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of FY 2012 passed by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday, could have damaging and far-reaching effects on the way U.S. foreign assistance is administered. The legislation authorizes spending for the State Department, USAID, and international institutions for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012.