Washington, June 6 (IANS) Senior US lawmakers and policy experts have issued a stark warning that Turkey is moving steadily away from democratic governance, with concerns mounting over political repression, judicial independence and the imprisonment of opposition leaders ahead of a key NATO summit in Ankara next month.At a hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, lawmakers from both parties questioned whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government would allow meaningful political …
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Washington, May 15 (IANS) Senior US lawmakers and State Department officials warned that China’s growing support for Russia’s war machine is rapidly reshaping how the Baltic states view Beijing, with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia increasingly treating economic relations with China as a national security issue linked directly to the war in Ukraine.The issue emerged repeatedly during a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Baltic security, where lawmakers described the three NATO front…
Washington, Feb 6 (IANS) A joint House Foreign Affairs hearing on defending religious freedom delivered a stark warning that authoritarian regimes and extremist violence are accelerating a worldwide crackdown on faith communities, while US policy tools and enforcement mechanisms lag behind the scale of the crisis.At a hearing titled “Defending Religious Freedom Around the World,” Congressman Christopher Smith said religious liberty — often described as “America’s first freedom” — i…