Carles Puigdemont Quotes

Ukraine is facing a serious threat of isolation as some local political forces want to put an end to democracy and democratic reforms in the country

Nigeria first entered...'the dismal tunnel' on January 15, 1966, when the military overthrew all the institutions of a democratically elected government... If there is light at the end of this tunnel, it is imperceptible to anyone not paid to see it.

We see the tendency in the world to criticise democracy and sometimes even to say that authoritarian countries like China are more efficient. That is very short-sighted. China looks efficient only because it can sacrifice most people's rights. This is not something the west should be happy about.

There's no checklist of how democracies fail because they fail in different ways. Some of them fail because they break up and civil war breaks out... Often they fail because someone is elected to power who doesn't respect the rules of the democracy.

I probably will not live to see Turkey become an exemplary democracy, but I pray that the downward authoritarian drift can be stopped before it is too late.

Spain's constitution was introduced to cement democracy after Franco's dictatorship, but this government is exploiting its wording as a means to deny us our right to vote.

Whereas Canada and our allies see the rule of law, freedom of speech, and fair elections as the guardrails to a more secure world, Beijing sees them as a threat to the rule of the Communist Party.

Liberal democracy is in regression all over the world, and it's a dangerous thing.

Aspiring dictators sometimes win elections, and elected leaders sometimes govern badly and threaten their neighbors.History demonstrates that democracy usually follows good governance, not the reverse.

Democracy derailed is democracy denied.

Only two countries in this hemisphere are not democratic, but many countries in both Central and South America, and in the Caribbean, are really fragile democracies.

I've been saying it all along: please do not demonise Robert Mugabe. I'm not saying the methods he's using are correct, but he was put under great pressure.

There is a real and evident problem of democracy in Georgia, and this was the core reason of my entrance into politics. We have no rule of law. It's absolutely absent.

Despite all the gains for democracy in the world, in many countries anyone who wants to publish truths unwelcome to the government risks suppression and criminal punishment.

You can't, in the 21st century, continue to live in a system where people live under martial law for 30 years.

For every African state, like Ghana, where democratic institutions seem secure, there is a Mali, a Cote d'Ivoire, and a Zimbabwe, where democracy is in trouble.

It's true that General Musharraf opposes my return, seeing me as a symbol of democracy in the country. He is comfortable with dictatorship. I hope better sense prevails.

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.

After each war there is a little less democracy to save.

Also, when you escape a Communist regime, you treasure liberty and you understand that as government and state expand, liberty must contract.

I'm very disappointed by the mature-democracy countries. I was ousted by a coup d'etat.

We believe that this is not right for a democracy to make revolutions the beacon of promoting democracy.

Ever since I took to the streets when I was 17 to protest at great personal risk against the communist dictatorship, I have been a passionate democrat.

It is true you cannot eat freedom and you cannot power machinery with democracy. But then neither can political prisoners turn on the light in the cells of a dictatorship.

My hope is that the Chinese government will come to realise that it is futile to repress free speech, and that contrary to what they believe a regime's strength rests not its suppression of a plurality of opinions and ideas, but in its capacity and willingness to encourage them.