Andrei Sakharov Quotes

Similarly, gender-equality, supremacy of law, political participation, civil society, and transparency are among the indispensable elements that are the imperatives of democratization.

China is on a march toward rule of law and democracy.

We keep looking at democratization as an event—like the fall of the Berlin Wall—but it’s actually a process.

For years, Taiwan has been dominated politically by a single party, the Kuomintang. People now want the place to be more democratic. They want to place more emphasis on human rights and transparency in terms of government decision-making. This is different from the way the government conducted business in the days when this was pretty much an authoritarian place.

I regard the endorsement of both the objective and a method - which can differ from one country to another- of democratization by the parties in the region as a basic requisite of democratization in the Middle East.

Deep in my heart, I still believe that the democratization of Russia and the democratization of Ukraine will proceed.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country.

I see corruption as a mortal enemy for young democracies.

China has to go along with world trends. That's democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

I have great confidence in Taiwan's democracy. I have great confidence in the universal value and in basic human rights, and I have great confidence that referenda will eventually take root and become part of our daily lives in Taiwan.

Given political history in Chile, it seemed to me that there was a critical task of consolidating a democracy and creating healthy civic-military and political-military relationships.

We have been talking with leaders: Change is coming; you can no longer have a closed regime with an open society - satellites, social media, the Internet - you have this kind, this kind of society moving forward, and you are running this closed regime; this is not sustainable. This cannot continue.

The US has not imposed democracy in Yemen, its people have.

Lebanon is restless, Syria got its walking papers, Egypt is scheduling elections with more than one candidate, and even Saudi Arabia, whose rulers are perhaps more terrified of women than rulers anywhere else in the world, allowed limited municipal elections.

The free world should not wait for dictatorial regimes to consent to reform.

My goal for the Arab world is to change the status quo, which is horrible politically, religiously, economically, in every way.

[We must] accelerate the reform of our political system, especially the building of a system of socialist democracy based on law …. Democracy is a worldwide trend …. If the Party doesn’t hold up the banner of democracy in our country, someone else will, and we will lose out.

The peaceful path out of totalitarianism has never been tested.

In the next few months of this year, a broad democratic movement must be set going throughout the country, with the immediate objective of completely democratizing the national assembly and the constitution. The second matter concerns freedom of speech, assembly and association for the people. Without such freedom, it will be impossible to carry out the democratic reconstruction of the political system, mobilize the people for the war of resistance and victoriously defend the motherland and recover the lost territories …

Democracy and freedom … are based on democratic institutions, the rule of law, and a civil society. None of these Arab states have any of these to any significant degree.

Establishing a stable democracy is a two stage process. First you get rid of the old regime, then you build a durable democratic replacement. Because the first stage is dramatic, many people think the game is over when the dictator is gone. But the second stage is more difficult. There are many examples of broad coalitions coming together to oust dictators but relatively few of them stayed together and agreed on what a new regime should look like.

If there has been any progress in the Chinese society and politics over the last 20 years, it is all because the citizens have been pushing for change.

The country is moving to a more open society.

Lawyers have rendered immense sacrifices for the restoration of democracy and free judiciary, and their role in this regard cannot be ignored.