Richard Engel Quotes

The government that has imprisoned more journalists than any other in the world was democratically elected.

If you know anything about Ethiopia, they are very security conscious, a very closed environment. It's a repressive place were journalists and bloggers are arrested all the time.

The Iranian regime continues to violate the human rights of its own people, targeting political and civil society activists.

By contrast, China is a repressive regime that denies its citizens the essential freedoms of religion, political dissent and representative self-government.

During most of the Bush administration, human rights and democracy in Egypt were on the front burner.

The raids on Freedom House, the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute, the Adenauer Foundation, and other groups helping Egyptians move toward respect for democratic politics and human rights were of a piece with the practices of Hosni Mubarak - only bolder and more repressive.

In Singapore, Malcolm X type of activity would be extremely difficult because the government can be very harsh on lawbreakers.

It's up to any government to decide how to react to the denial of basic human rights anywhere in the world, including Egypt.

The Iranian regime doesn't express the wishes and values of the Iranian people.

As in Pakistan, Tunisian and Egyptian human rights activists are concerned that any censorship mechanisms, once put in place, will inevitably be abused for political purposes no matter what censorship proponents claim to the contrary.

The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it.

For 73 years a totalitarian regime ruled the country. Totalitarian regime.

The greatest threat to the security of the people of North Korea comes from the government of North Korea.

Open your newspaper - any day of the week - and you will find a report from somewhere in the world of someone being imprisoned, tortured or executed because his opinions or religion are unacceptable to his government.

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

We [Arabs] export not only oil but techniques and tools of torture. Our states, run by ministries of the interior and the security services, are regimes bereft of legitimacy and based on violations of dignity and human rights.

This is probably my last free statement through our news media, where the radio and television are already under the heel of the ruling political party of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe. One would have thought radio and television were enough as propaganda tools.

We have more billionaires than any country but the United States. And Putin can imprison any one of them at a moment’s notice. Do you think he is poor?

What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition

Maintaining legitimacy in an authoritarian state is very difficult.

There is a terrible price the U. S. Government must pay when it associates itself … intimately with a repressive regime.

Turkey jails more journalists than any other country in the world—more than China, more than Iran

Governments whose authority is ebbing have been increasingly brazen in their attempts to silence critics.

Turkey still has one of the highest number of imprisoned journalists in the world.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.