Old Tears, New Parties, and a Few Laughs

Powerful Tears

@Licadho has posted a powerful video, above, titled, “‘Our Tears Are Our Strength’: Women Human Rights Defenders“. It includes a statement of Um Sophy, 39, who has faced “serious harassment, multiple criminal cases and even lost her job as a teacher as a result of her tireless activism to defend her community’s land against a politically connected company.”

No Rule of Law

@noansereiboth writes that the “Ministry of Interior rejects the request to establish a party named ‘Rule of Law Party’. The Ministry informed the party to change that name.”

Potemkin Robot

Grigory Potemkin was a Russian military leader and governor in the late 1700s. He became famous for creating “Potemkin Villages,” hastily erected facades on a riverbank built to convince the visiting empress, Catherine the Great, of the progress that had been made under his leadership. The term has become both an inspiration and an epithet for the art of fooling casual observers.

In this great (not only Russian) tradition, Russian state television could not resist passing off a man in a robot suit as an example of the country’s great robotic-engineering prowess.