Freedom of speech and of the press, a key democratic right, is increasingly under threat around the world. Autocracies may pay lip service to the right and pretend that the limits they impose are solely in the interests of stability, but this is hypocrisy.
Since President Xi Jinping came to power in China he has suppressed criticism of his regime and increasingly persecuted dissidents. The situation in North Korea is even worse. In President Vladimir Putin's Russia, the media are manipulated to ensure that his policies are promoted and Russian nationalism encouraged. In Middle Eastern autocracies critics are liable to arrest and imprisonment.
In countries such as Turkey, which aspires to become a member of the European Union, the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has seized control of opposition newspapers and TV channels and prosecuted journalists who criticize government policies. In Washington, when Erdogan visited the Brookings Institute recently, his bodyguards roughed up reporters protesting Turkish persecution of journalists.