title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 1997, ruling unanimously in the case of "Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union", the Supreme Court voided the anti-indecency provisions of the Communications Decency Act (the CDA), finding they violated the freedom of speech provisions of the First Amendment. In their decision, the Supreme Court held that the CDA's "use of the undefined terms 'indecent' and 'patently offensive' will provoke uncertainty among speakers about how the two standards relate to each other and just what they mean."


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2000, Marvin Johnson, a legislative counsel for the ACLU, stated that proposed anti-spam legislation infringed on free speech by denying anonymity and by forcing spam to be labeled as such, "Standardized labeling is compelled speech." He also stated, "It's relatively simple to click and delete." The debate found the ACLU joining with the Direct Marketing Association and the Center for Democracy and Technology in 2000 in criticizing a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives. As early as 1997, the ACLU had taken a strong position that nearly all spam legislation was improper, although it has supported "opt-out" requirements in some cases. The ACLU opposed the 2003 CAN-SPAM act suggesting that it could have a chilling effect on speech in cyberspace. It has been criticized for this position.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In November 2000, 15 African-American residents of Hearne, Texas, were indicted on drug charges after being arrested in a series of "drug sweeps". The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit, "Kelly v. Paschall", on their behalf, alleging that the arrests were unlawful. The ACLU contended that 15 percent of Hearne's male African-American population aged 18 to 34 were arrested based only on the "uncorroborated word of a single unreliable confidential informant coerced by police to make cases". On May 11, 2005, the ACLU and Robertson County announced a confidential settlement of the lawsuit, an outcome which "both sides stated that they were satisfied with". The District Attorney dismissed the charges against the plaintiffs of the suit. The 2009 film "American Violet" depicts this case.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2000, the ACLU's Massachusetts affiliate represented the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), on first amendment grounds, in the "Curley v. NAMBLA" wrongful death civil suit. The organization was sued because a man who raped and murdered a child had visited the NAMBLA website. Also in 2000, the ACLU lost the "Boy Scouts of America v. Dale" case, which had asked the Supreme Court to require the Boy Scouts of America to drop their policy of prohibiting homosexuals from becoming Boy Scout leaders.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2006, the ACLU of Washington State joined with a pro-gun rights organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, and prevailed in a lawsuit against the North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) in Washington for its policy of refusing to disable restrictions upon an adult patron's request. Library patrons attempting to access pro-gun web sites were blocked, and the library refused to remove the blocks. In 2012, the ACLU sued the same library system for refusing to disable temporarily, at the request of an adult patron, Internet filters which blocked access to Google Images.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2006, the ACLU challenged a Missouri law that prohibited picketing outside of veterans' funerals. The suit was filed in support of the Westboro Baptist Church and Shirley Phelps-Roper, who were threatened with arrest. The Westboro Baptist Church is well known for their picket signs that contain messages such as, "God Hates Fags", "Thank God for Dead Soldiers", and "Thank God for 9/11". The ACLU issued a statement calling the legislation a "law that infringes on Shirley Phelps-Roper's rights to religious liberty and free speech". The ACLU prevailed in the lawsuit.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: The ACLU argued in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court that a decision of the constitutionality of Massachusetts law required the consideration of additional evidence because lower courts have undervalued the right to engage in sidewalk counseling. The law prohibited sidewalk counselors from approaching women outside abortion facilities and offering them alternatives to abortion but allowed escorts to speak with them and accompany them into the building. In overturning the law in "McCullen v. Coakley", the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that it violated the counselors' freedom of speech and that it was viewpoint discrimination.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2009, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in "Citizens United v. FEC", arguing that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 violated the First Amendment right to free speech by curtailing political speech. This stance on the landmark "Citizens United" case caused considerable disagreement within the organization, resulting in a discussion about its future stance during a quarterly board meeting in 2010. On March 27, 2012, the ACLU reaffirmed its stance in support of the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" ruling, at the same time voicing support for expanded public financing of election campaigns and stating the organization would firmly oppose any future constitutional amendment limiting free speech.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2012, the ACLU filed suit on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan of Georgia, claiming that the KKK was unfairly rejected from the state's "Adopt-a-Highway" program. The ACLU prevailed in the lawsuit.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: Beginning in 2017, some individuals claimed the ACLU was reducing its support of unpopular free speech (specifically by declining to defend speech made by conservatives) in favor of identity politics, political correctness, and progressivism. Former ACLU director Ira Glasser stated that "the ACLU might not take the Skokie case today."


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: One basis of these allegations was a 2017 statement made from the ACLU president to a reporter after the death of a counter-protester during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Virginia, where Romero told a reporter that the ACLU would no longer support legal cases of activists that wish to carry guns at their protests.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: Another basis for these claims was an internal ACLU memo dated June 2018, discussing factors to evaluate when deciding whether or not to take a case. The memo listed several factors to consider, including "the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values". Some analysts viewed this as a retreat from ACLU's historically strong support of first amendment rights, regardless of whether minorities were negatively impacted by the speech, citing the ACLU's past support for certain KKK and Nazi legal cases. The memo's authors stated that the memo did not define a change in official ACLU policy, but was simply intended as a guideline to assist ACLU affiliates in deciding which cases to take.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2021, the ACLU filed a brief siding with a school district that had a policy of using preferred pronouns for transgender students. Some analysts felt this was a retreat from the ACLU's historical defense of the first amendment, because the ACLU was opposing the teachers who were disciplined for refusing to use the preferred pronouns.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2021, the ACLU responded to the criticisms by releasing a statement denying that they are reducing their support for unpopular First Amendment causes, and listing 27 cases from the years 2017 to 2021 where the ACLU supported a party holding an unpopular or repugnant viewpoint. The cases included one which challenged college restrictions on hate speech; a case defending a Catholic school's right to discriminate in hiring; and a case which defended antisemitic protesters who marched outside a synagogue.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In March 2004, the ACLU, along with Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, sued the state of California on behalf of six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses. That case, "Woo v. Lockyer", was eventually consolidated into "In re Marriage Cases", the California Supreme Court case which led to same-sex marriage being available in that state from June 16, 2008, until Proposition 8 was passed on November 4, 2008. The ACLU, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights then challenged Proposition 8 and won.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2010, the ACLU of Illinois was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame as a Friend of the Community.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2011, the ACLU started its Don't Filter Me project, countering LGBT-related Internet censorship in public schools in the United States.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: On January 7, 2013, the ACLU reached a settlement with the federal government in "Collins v. United States" that provided for the payment of full separation pay to servicemembers discharged under "don't ask, don't tell" since November 10, 2004, who had previously been granted only half that. Some 181 were expected to receive about $13,000 each.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2021, the ACLU tweeted a quote by Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the subject of pregnancy, replacing gender-specific words with bracketed gender-neutral words. The president of the ACLU later apologized for the changes to the quote, explaining that it was a good-faith mistake by the ACLU's media team, attempting to address the fact that there are people who seek abortions who do not identify as women.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In light of the Supreme Court's "Heller" decision recognizing that the Constitution protects an individual right to bear arms, ACLU of Nevada took a position of supporting "the individual's right to bear arms subject to constitutionally permissible regulations" and pledged to "defend this right as it defends other constitutional rights". In 2021, the ACLU supported the position that the Second Amendment was originally written to ensure that Southern states could use militias to suppress slave uprisings, and that anti-Blackness ensured its inclusion in the Bill of Rights.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: After the September 11 attacks, the federal government instituted a broad range of new measures to combat terrorism, including the passage of the Patriot Act. The ACLU challenged many of the measures, claiming that they violated rights regarding due process, privacy, illegal searches, and cruel and unusual punishment. An ACLU policy statement states:


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: During the ensuing debate regarding the proper balance of civil liberties and security, the membership of the ACLU increased by 20%, bringing the group's total enrollment to 330,000. The growth continued, and by August 2008 ACLU membership was greater than 500,000. It remained at that level through 2011.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: The ACLU has been a vocal opponent of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, the PATRIOT 2 Act of 2003, and associated legislation made in response to the threat of domestic terrorism. In response to a requirement of the USA PATRIOT Act, the ACLU withdrew from the Combined Federal Campaign charity drive. The campaign imposed a requirement that ACLU employees must be checked against a federal anti-terrorism watch list. The ACLU has stated that it would "reject $500,000 in contributions from private individuals rather than submit to a government 'blacklist' policy".


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2004, the ACLU sued the federal government in "American Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft" on behalf of Nicholas Merrill, owner of an Internet service provider. Under the provisions of the Patriot Act, the government had issued national security letters to Merrill to compel him to provide private Internet access information from some of his customers. In addition, the government placed a gag order on Merrill, forbidding him from discussing the matter with anyone.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In January 2006, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, "ACLU v. NSA", in a federal district court in Michigan, challenging government spying in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. On August 17, 2006, that court ruled that the warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered it ended immediately. However, the order was stayed pending an appeal. The Bush administration did suspend the program while the appeal was being heard. In February 2008, the US Supreme Court turned down an appeal from the ACLU to let it pursue a lawsuit against the program that began shortly after the September 11 terror attacks.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: The ACLU and other organizations also filed separate lawsuits around the country against telecommunications companies. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in Illinois ("Terkel v. AT&T") which was dismissed because of the state secrets privilege and two others in California requesting injunctions against AT&T and Verizon. On August 10, 2006, the lawsuits against the telecommunications companies were transferred to a federal judge in San Francisco.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: The ACLU represents a Muslim-American who was detained but never accused of a crime in "Ashcroft v. al-Kidd", a civil suit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft. In January 2010, the American military released the names of 645 detainees held at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility in Afghanistan, modifying its long-held position against publicizing such information. This list was prompted by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed in September 2009 by the ACLU, whose lawyers had also requested detailed information about conditions, rules and regulations.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: The ACLU has also criticized targeted killings of American citizens who fight against the United States. In 2011, the ACLU criticized the killing of radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on the basis that it was a violation of his Fifth Amendment right to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: On August 10, 2020, in an opinion article for "USA Today" by Anthony D. Romero, the ACLU called for the dismantling of the United States Department of Homeland Security over the deployment of federal forces in July 2020 during the George Floyd protests. On August 26, 2020, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven protesters and three veterans following the protests in Portland, Oregon, which accused the Trump Administration of using excessive force and unlawful arrests with federal officers.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: Following Donald Trump's election as president on November 8, 2016, the ACLU responded on Twitter saying: "Should President-elect Donald Trump attempt to implement his unconstitutional campaign promises, we'll see him in court." On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order indefinitely barring "Syrian refugees from entering the United States, suspended all refugee admissions for 120 days and blocked citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, refugees or otherwise, from entering the United States for 90 days: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen". The ACLU responded by filing a lawsuit against the ban on behalf of Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, who had been detained at JFK International Airport. On January 28, 2017, District Court Judge Ann Donnelly granted a temporary injunction against the immigration order, saying it was difficult to see any harm from allowing the newly arrived immigrants to remain in the country.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In response to Trump's order, the ACLU raised more than $24 million from more than 350,000 individual online donations in a two-day period. This amounted to six times what the ACLU normally receives in online donations in a year. Celebrities donating included Chris Sacca (who offered to match other people's donations and ultimately gave $150,000), Rosie O'Donnell, Judd Apatow, Sia, John Legend, and Adele. The number of members of the ACLU doubled in the time from the election to end of January to 1 million.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: Grants and contributions increased from $106,628,381 USD reported by the 2016 year-end income statement to $274,104,575 by the 2017 year-end statement. The primary source of revenue from the segment came from individual contributions in response to the Trump presidency's infringements on civil liberties. The surge in donations more than doubled the total support and revenue of the non-profit organization year over year from 2016 to 2017. Besides filing more lawsuits than during previous presidential administrations, the ACLU has spent more money on advertisements and messaging as well, weighing in on elections and pressing political concerns. This increased public profile has drawn some accusations that the organization has become more politically partisan than in previous decades.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: During the 2004 trial regarding allegations of Rush Limbaugh's drug abuse, the ACLU argued that his privacy should not have been compromised by allowing law enforcement examination of his medical records.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In June 2004, the school district in Dover, Pennsylvania, required that its high school biology students listen to a statement which asserted that the theory of evolution is not fact and mentioning intelligent design as an alternative theory. Several parents called the ACLU to complain, because they believed that the school was promoting a religious idea in the classroom and violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The ACLU, joined by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, represented the parents in a lawsuit against the school district. After a lengthy trial, Judge John E. Jones III ruled in favor of the parents in the "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District" decision, finding that intelligent design is not science and permanently forbidding the Dover school system from teaching intelligent design in science classes.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In April 2006, Edward Jones and the ACLU sued the City of Los Angeles, on behalf of Robert Lee Purrie and five other homeless people, for the city's violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution, and Article I, sections 7 and 17 of the California Constitution (supporting due process and equal protection, and prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment). The Court ruled in favor of the ACLU, stating that, "the LAPD cannot arrest people for sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks in Skid Row." Enforcement of section 41.18(d) 24 hours a day against persons who have nowhere else to sit, lie, or sleep, other than on public streets and sidewalks, is breaking these amendments. The Court said that the anti-camping ordinance is "one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States". Jones and the ACLU wanted a compromise in which the LAPD is barred from enforcing section 41.18(d) (arrest, seizure, and imprisonment) in Skid Row between the hours of 9:00 p.m. and 6:30 am. The compromise plan permitted the homeless to sleep on the sidewalk, provided they are not "within 10 feet of any business or residential entrance" and only between these hours. One of the motivations for the compromise was the shortage of space in the prison system. Downtown development business interests and the Central City Association (CCA) were against the compromise. Police Chief William Bratton said the case had slowed the police effort to fight crime and clean up Skid Row, and that when he was allowed to clean up Skid Row, real estate profited. On September 20, 2006, the Los Angeles City Council voted to reject the compromise. On October 3, 2006, police arrested Skid Row's transients for sleeping on the streets for the first time in months.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2009, the Oregon ACLU opposed changing state law to permit teachers to wear religious clothing in classrooms, citing separation of church and state principles. The ACLU's efforts were not successful.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In 2018, the ACLU conceived and ghostwrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post" in which Amber Heard accused her ex-husband Johnny Depp of domestic abuse, leading Depp to sue Heard for defamation over the op-ed in the 2022 trial "Depp v. Heard". The ACLU testified in the trial that they wrote the op-ed in exchange for a $3.5 million donation pledge from Heard, and timed its release to capitalize on the press from Heard's newly released film "Aquaman". The ACLU requested $86,000 from Depp for the cost of producing documents for the case. At the end of the trial, the jury ruled that Heard had defamed Depp with actual malice in all three counts related to the "Washington Post" op-ed.


title: American Civil Liberties Union

text: In June 2020, the ACLU sued the federal government for denying Paycheck Protection Program loans to business owners with criminal backgrounds.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: Vikram Prabhu is an Indian actor working in Tamil language films who made his debut in Prabhu Solomon's "Kumki" (2012). He also played the protagonist in "Ivan Veramathiri" (2013) and "Vellaikaara Durai" (2014). He is the son of actor Prabhu and grandson of the veteran actor Sivaji Ganesan.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: Vikram signed on for a venture under the direction Prabhu Solomon's to be produced by N. Linguswamy. Titled "Kumki", the film was based on elephants and the director thus sent Vikram to an elephant training camp in Ottapalam in Kerala to get himself accustomed to the animals. The film released in December 2012 to critical acclaim and commercial success, emerging as one of the biggest hits of the year. A critic stated that Prabhu excels in the "intensely emotional scenes in the climax", while that "he is also at ease portraying angst, gratitude and rage". Furthermore, the critic wrote that "his physique is a major plus", giving the verdict that he "is expected to carry on the Ganesan family lineage" in films.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: During the making of "Kumki", Vikram Prabhu began work in "Sattam Oru Iruttarai", a remake of the 1981 film of the same name, produced by Vijay. He began filming and played the role of an angry young man who feels that the legal system is flawed. The film, which began production in May 2012 was directed by Sneha. However the insistence of Prabhu Solomon to reshoot the climax of "Kumki", led to the actor leaving "Sattam Oru Iruttarai" during production and after a period of delay he was replaced by newcomer Thaman Kumar. Subsequently, he signed on to appear in M. Saravanan's action thriller film "Ivan Veramathiri" and portrayed the role of a student amongst an ensemble cast also featuring Vamsi Krishna and Ganesh Venkatraman. The film opened in December 2013 to positive reviews, with a critic noting that Vikram Prabhu "is convincing as an action hero, especially in the raw and realistic climax fight scene, but has to work on his dance a bit more."


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: His first 2014 release was the action thriller "Arima Nambi", which was directed by Anand Shankar, an assistant director to A. R. Murugadoss. Later that year, he was seen in Gaurav's "Sigaram Thodu", a family action entertainer, which featured the actor in two distinct looks and alongside Sathyaraj and Monal Gajjar. He had a third release in 2014, "Vellaikaara Durai", directed by Ezhil, that has Sridivya in the cast. This released on Christmas 2014, which was a rom-com and was considered a hit. In 2015, his next movie was "Idhu Enna Maayam", a romantic comedy directed by A. L. Vijay. "Despite his good performance, actor Vikram Prabhu looks extremely awkward and out of place as a college student; said Rediff.com's review.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: In July 2016, Vikram Prabhu launched a production house named "First Artist", under which he would produce future films.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: His next venture was an action film, "Wagah" (2016). Sify described; "Vikram Prabhu is earnest in the film and tries hard to rise above a muddled script and poorly written dialogues". His next film was "Veera Sivaji" (2016). Once again Vikram Prabhu is earnest with his performance but fail to rise above the severely flawed script. In 2017, the gangster thriller "Sathriyan" was released. Performance wise, Vikram Prabhu is perfect as the angry young man. His body language and dialogue deliver aptly suit his characterization, easily Sathriyan is his comeback film as an actor. Vikram Prabhu has ventured into production through "Neruppu Da" (2017), and their promotions promised to talk about the hardships and lifestyle of the firemen. After acting in action and serious subjects, Vikram Prabhu appears in a comedy role in his movie "Pakka" (2018). Vikram Prabhu has played a dual role. The movie has Nikki Galrani in the female lead with Bindu Madhavi' s Tamil fame enacting an important character. Then he appeared in Radha Mohan' s, "60 Vayadu Maaniram" (2018) and action thriller "Thuppakki Munai" (2018).


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: The next was a family ensemble cast led by veterans R. Sarathkumar and Raadhika, in Dhana Sekaran's "Vaanam Kottatum" (2020). Mani Ratnam producing and also co-writing. Vikram Prabhu's mature and believable performance is complemented by Aishwarya Rajesh. Then, "Asuraguru" (2020) is a below average heist thriller.


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: Vikram studied in San Diego, completing an MBA programme, and briefly returned to Chennai to help out in the production activities of his family's Sivaji Productions venture, "Chandramukhi" (2005).


title: Vikram Prabhu

text: Vikram married Lakshmi Ujjaini, daughter of Industrialist M. Madhivanan, on 26 February 2007. They have two children.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Thomas Midgley Jr. (May 18, 1889 – November 2, 1944) was an American mechanical and chemical engineer. He played a major role in developing leaded gasoline (tetraethyl lead) and some of the first chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), better known in the United States by the brand name Freon; both products were later banned from common use due to their harmful impact on human health and the environment. He was granted more than 100 patents over the course of his career. In 1944 he accidentally strangled himself to death in Worthington, Ohio.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Midgley was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to a family with a history of invention. His father, Thomas Midgley Sr., was an inventor notably in the field of automobile tires. His maternal grandfather was James Emerson, who invented the "inserted tooth saw". His mother was Hattie Midgley (née Emerson). He grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Cornell University in 1911 with a degree in mechanical engineering. On August 3, 1911, Midgley married Carrie M. Reynolds from Delaware, Ohio.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Midgley began working at General Motors in 1916. In December 1921, while working under the direction of Charles Kettering at Dayton Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of General Motors, Midgley discovered (after discarding tellurium due to the difficult-to-eradicate smell) that the addition of tetraethyllead (TEL) to gasoline prevented "knocking" in internal combustion engines. The company named the substance "Ethyl", avoiding all mention of lead in reports and advertising. Oil companies and automobile manufacturers, especially General Motors which owned the patent jointly filed by Kettering and Midgley, promoted the TEL additive as an inexpensive alternative superior to ethanol or ethanol-blended fuels, on which they could make very little profit. In December 1922, the American Chemical Society awarded Midgley the 1923 Nichols Medal for the "Use of Anti-Knock Compounds in Motor Fuels". This was the first of several major awards he earned during his career.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In 1923, Midgley took a long vacation in Miami, Florida, to cure himself of lead poisoning. He found "that my lungs have been affected and that it is necessary to drop all work and get a large supply of fresh air".


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In April 1923, General Motors created the General Motors Chemical Company (GMCC) to supervise the production of TEL by the DuPont company. Kettering was elected as president, and Midgley was vice president. However, after two deaths and several cases of lead poisoning at the TEL prototype plant in Dayton, Ohio, the staff at Dayton was said in 1924 to be "depressed to the point of considering giving up the whole tetraethyl lead program". Over the course of the next year, eight more people died at DuPont's plant in Deepwater, New Jersey.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In 1924, dissatisfied with the speed of DuPont's TEL production using the "bromide process", General Motors and the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (now known as ExxonMobil) created the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation to produce and market TEL. Ethyl Corporation built a new chemical plant using a high-temperature ethyl chloride process at the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey. However, within the first two months of its operation, the new plant was plagued by more cases of lead poisoning, hallucinations, insanity, and five deaths.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: The risks associated with exposure to lead were known at least 150 years before, when Benjamin Franklin wrote about his experiences as a typesetter. Midgley experienced lead poisoning himself, and was warned about the risk of lead poisoning from TEL as early as 1922.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL, in which he poured TEL over his hands, placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose, and inhaled its vapor for 60 seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems. However, the State of New Jersey ordered the Bayway plant to be closed a few days later, and Jersey Standard was forbidden to manufacture TEL again without state permission. Midgley later took a leave of absence from work after being diagnosed with lead poisoning. He was relieved of his position as vice president of GMCC in April 1925, reportedly due to his inexperience in organizational matters, but he remained an employee of General Motors.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In the late 1920s, air conditioning and refrigeration systems employed compounds such as ammonia (NH), chloromethane (CHCl), propane, methyl formate (CHO), and sulfur dioxide (SO) as refrigerants. Though effective, these were toxic, flammable or explosive. The Frigidaire division of General Motors, at that time a leading manufacturer of such systems, sought a non-toxic, non-flammable alternative to these refrigerants.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Midgley, working with Albert Leon Henne, soon narrowed his focus to alkyl halides (the combination of carbon chains and halogens), which were known to be highly volatile (a requirement for a refrigerant) and also chemically inert. They eventually settled on the concept of incorporating fluorine into a hydrocarbon. They rejected the assumption that such compounds would be toxic, believing that the stability of the carbon–fluorine bond would be sufficient to prevent the release of hydrogen fluoride or other potential breakdown products. The team eventually synthesized dichlorodifluoromethane, the first chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which they named "Freon". This compound is more commonly referred to today as "Freon 12", or "R12".


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Freon and other CFCs soon largely replaced other refrigerants, but also had other applications. A notable example was their use as a propellant in aerosol products and asthma inhalers. The Society of Chemical Industry awarded Midgley the Perkin Medal in 1937 for this work.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In 1941, the American Chemical Society gave Midgley its highest award, the Priestley Medal. This was followed by the Willard Gibbs Award in 1942. He also held two honorary degrees and was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1944, he was elected president and chairman of the American Chemical Society.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio, which left him severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. In 1944, he became entangled in the device and died of strangulation.


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Midgley's legacy is the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny". Fred Pearce, writing for New Scientist, described Midgley as a "one-man environmental disaster."


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Use of leaded gasoline, which he invented, released large quantities of lead into the atmosphere all over the world. High atmospheric lead levels have been linked with serious long-term health problems from childhood, including neurological impairment, and with increased levels of violence and criminality in America and around the world. "Time" magazine included both leaded gasoline and CFCs on its list of "The 50 Worst Inventions".


title: Thomas Midgley Jr.

text: Midgley died three decades before the ozone-depleting and greenhouse gas effects of CFCs in the atmosphere became widely known. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol phased out the use of CFCs like Freon.


title: Sedition

text: Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interest of sedition.


title: Sedition

text: Because sedition is overt, it is typically not considered a subversive act, and the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another.


title: Sedition

text: "Seditio" () was the offence, in the later Roman Republic, of collective disobedience to a magistrate, including both military mutiny and civilian mob action. Leading or instigating a "seditio" was punishable by death. Civil "seditio" became frequent during the political crisis of the first century BCE, as populist politicians sought to check the privileged classes by appealing to public assemblies. The Julio-Claudian emperors "solved" the problem of popular appeals by abolishing elections and other duties of the assemblies. Under Tiberius the crime of "seditio" was subsumed in the law of "majestas", which prohibited any utterance against the dignity of the emperor.


title: Sedition

text: "Seditio" has often been proposed as the offence for which Jesus was crucified, as described in : "inciting the people to rebellion" (, "leading the people astray").


title: Sedition

text: The term "sedition" in its modern meaning first appeared in the Elizabethan Era (c. 1590) as the "notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constituted authority". The law developed in the Court of Star Chamber, relying on longstanding "scandalum magnatum" statutes and a broad repressive act of Mary I against literature that contained "the encouraging, stirring or moving of any insurrection". That seditious statements were true was no defence, but rather an aggravating factor, since true statements were all the more potent. After the Star Chamber's dissolution, enforcement continued in the courts of assize and quarter sessions.


title: Sedition

text: Three classes of seditious offence were commonly charged: "seditious words" manifested by speaking, "seditious libel" by writing or publishing, and "seditious conspiracy" by active plotting. Although England adopted the name of the offence from Roman-derived civil law, it did not rely on the jurisprudence.


title: Sedition

text: Australia's sedition laws were amended in anti-terrorism legislation passed on 6 December 2005, updating definitions and increasing penalties.


title: Sedition

text: In late 2006, the Commonwealth Government, under the Prime-Ministership of John Howard proposed plans to amend Australia's Crimes Act 1914, introducing laws that meant artists and writers may be jailed for up to seven years if their work was considered seditious or inspired sedition either deliberately or accidentally. Opponents of these laws have suggested that they could be used against dissent that may be seen as legitimate.


title: Sedition

text: In 2006, the then Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock had rejected calls by two reports—from a Senate committee and the Australian Law Reform Commission—to limit the sedition provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 by requiring proof of intention to cause disaffection or violence. He had also brushed aside recommendations to curtail new clauses outlawing “urging conduct” that “assists” an “organization or country engaged in armed hostilities” against the Australian military.


title: Sedition

text: These laws were amended in Australia on 19 September 2011. The ‘sedition’ clauses were repealed and replaced with ‘urging violence’.


title: Sedition

text: In Canada, sedition, which includes speaking seditious words, publishing a seditious libel, and being party to a seditious conspiracy, is an indictable offense, for which the maximum punishment is of fourteen years' imprisonment. For military personnel, Section 82 of the National Defence Act cites Seditious Offences as advocating governmental change by force, punishable by imprisonment for life or to less. Service offences up to two years imprisonment are served in a Military prison, followed by transfer to a penitentiary for the remainder of the sentence.


title: Sedition

text: During World War II, Camillien Houde campaigned against conscription. On 2 August 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the national registration measure introduced by the federal government. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition, and then confined without trial in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario and Ripples, New Brunswick until 1944. Upon his release on 18 August 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers, and won back his job as Montreal mayor in 1944's civic election.


title: Sedition

text: A Sedition Ordinance had existed in the territory since 1970, which was subsequently consolidated into the Crimes Ordinance in 1972. According to the Crimes Ordinance, a seditious intention is an intention to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of government, to excite inhabitants of Hong Kong to attempt to procure the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any other matter in Hong Kong as by law established, to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Hong Kong, to raise discontent or disaffection amongst inhabitants of Hong Kong, to promote feelings of ill-will and enmity between different classes of the population of Hong Kong, to incite persons to violence, or to counsel disobedience to law or to any lawful order. Sedition is punishable by a fine of HK$5,000 and imprisonment for 2 years, and further offences are punishable by imprisonment for 3 years.


title: Sedition

text: Article 23 of the Basic Law requires the special administrative region to enact laws prohibiting any act that be said of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China. The National Security (Legislative Provisions) Bill was tabled in early 2003 to replace the existing laws regarding treason and sedition, and to introduce new laws to prohibit secessionist and subversive acts and theft of state secrets, and to prohibit political organizations from establishing overseas ties. The bill was shelved following massive opposition from the public.


title: Sedition

text: In 2003, the Vishva Hindu Parishald (VHP) general secretary, Praveen Togadia, was sought to be charged with sedition for allegedly waging a war against the elected government and taking part in anti-national activity.


title: Sedition

text: In 2010, writer Arundhati Roy was sought to be charged with sedition for her comments on Kashmir and Maoists. Two individuals have been charged with sedition since 2007. Binayak Sen, an Indian doctor and public health specialist, and activist was found guilty of sedition. He is national Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). On 24 December 2010, the Additional Sessions and District Court Judge B.P Varma Raipur found Binayak Sen, Naxal ideologue Narayan Sanyal (politician) and Kolkata businessman Piyush Guha, guilty of sedition for helping the Maoists in their fight against the state. They were sentenced to life imprisonment, but he got bail in Supreme Court on 16 April 2011.


title: Sedition

text: On 10 September 2012, Aseem Trivedi, a political cartoonist, was sent to judicial custody till 24 September 2012 on charges of sedition over a series of cartoons against corruption. Trivedi was accused of uploading "ugly and obscene" content to his website, also accused of insulting the Constitution during an anti-corruption protest in Mumbai in 2011. Trivedi's arrest under sedition has been heavily criticised in India. The Press Council of India termed it a "stupid" move.


title: Sedition

text: In February 2016, JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on charges of Sedition & raising voice for the "Tukde Tukde Gang" under section 124-A of Indian Penal Code (which was part of the sedition laws implemented by the British Rule). His arrest raised political turmoil in the country with academicians and activists marching and protesting against this move by the government. He was released on interim bail on 2 March 2016 for a lack of conclusive evidence. On 13 January 2019, The Delhi Police filed a chargesheet on Monday against former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in a sedition case lodged in 2016.


title: Sedition

text: On 17 August 2016, Amnesty International India was booked in a case of "sedition" and "promoting enmity" by Bengaluru police. A complaint was filed by ABVP, an all India student organization affiliated to the Hindu Nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.


title: Sedition

text: In September 2018, Divya Spandana, the Congress Social Media chief was booked for sedition for calling Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, a thief.


title: Sedition

text: On 10 January 2019, a sedition case was registered suo-motto against Hiren Gohain and two others for their remarks against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. Gohain called the move "a desperate attempt by a cornered government".


title: Sedition

text: On February 13, 2020, a sedition case was registered against Disha Ravi a climate activist, by the Delhi Police for allegedly trying to incite perpetuate violence and defame India with regards to her support of the farmers protest.


title: Sedition

text: A sedition case was filed against Shashi Tharoor, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and 5 other journalists by Noida Police for allegedly instigating violence and spreading misinformation over a series of tweets during the violence from a tractor rally on republic day on 26 January in New Delhi.


title: Sedition

text: As of May 2022, Supreme Court of India has put sedition law on hold and ordered the government to not book further cases under the same.


title: Sedition

text: Article 40.6.1° (i) of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland guaranteed the right to freedom of expression, subject to several constraints, among them:


title: Sedition

text: Advocates for freedom of speech have argued that this constraint ought to be removed; any constitutional amendment requires a referendum. The thirty-seventh amendment of the constitution removed the offence of blasphemy.


title: Sedition

text: The law of the Republic of Ireland since the 1922 independence of the Irish Free State inherited earlier common law principles based on English law. The crime of seditious libel was presumed to persist, although last prosecuted in 1901. After the common law offence of blasphemous libel was ruled in 1999 to be incompatible with the constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech, jurists argued that seditious libel was similarly unconstitutional. Both blasphemous libel and seditious libel were abolished by the Defamation Act 2009, which also created new crime of "publication or utterance of blasphemous matter" to fulfil the constitutional requirement with regard to blasphemy. No new offence was created for sedition in 2009; this was in line with the recommendations of a 1991 consultation paper on libel by the Law Reform Commission (LRC) on the basis that several statutes define offences which are tantamount to sedition.


title: Sedition

text: The Offences against the State Act 1939 created the offences of making, distributing, and possessing a "seditious document". The LRC suggests that "sedition", left undefined by the constitution, might be implicitly defined by the 1939 act's definition of a "seditious document" as one:


title: Sedition

text: These provisions were largely aimed at Irish republican legitimatists who believed the 1922 Free State was a usurpation of the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1916 and again in 1919. The fourth provision made the use of the names "Irish Republican Army" and "Óglaigh na hÉireann" seditious as they were regarded as rightfully used by the Irish Defense Forces. The LRC notes that advocating violence is not essential for a document to be seditious.


title: Sedition

text: The LRC also notes that Section 1A of the Broadcasting Authority Act 1960 (inserted in 1976) prohibited broadcasting of "anything which may reasonably be regarded as being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or as tending to undermine the authority of the State". The 1960 act has since been replaced by the Broadcasting Act 2009, section 39 of which obliges broadcaster not to broadcast "anything which may reasonably be regarded as causing harm or offense, or as being likely to promote, or incite to, crime or as tending to undermine the authority of the State".


title: Sedition

text: Sedition charges were not uncommon in New Zealand early in the 20th century. For instance, the future Prime Minister Peter Fraser had been convicted of sedition in his youth for arguing against conscription during World War I, and was imprisoned for a year. Perhaps ironically, Fraser re-introduced the conscription of troops as the Prime Minister during World War II.


title: Sedition

text: In New Zealand's first sedition trial in decades, Tim Selwyn was convicted of sedition (section 83 of the Crimes Act 1961) on 8 June 2006.


title: Sedition

text: Shortly after, in September 2006, the New Zealand Police laid a sedition charge against a Rotorua youth, who was also charged with threatening to kill. The police withdrew the sedition charge when the youth agreed to plead guilty on the other charge.


title: Sedition

text: In March 2007, Mark Paul Deason, the manager of a tavern near the University of Otago, was charged with seditious intent although he was later granted diversion when he pleaded guilty to publishing a document which encourages public disorder. Deason ran a promotion for his tavern that offered one litre of beer for one litre of petrol where at the end of the promotion, the prize would have been a couch soaked in the petrol. It is presumed the intent was for the couch to be burned—a popular university student prank. Police also applied for Deason's liquor license to be revoked.


title: Sedition

text: Following a recommendation from the New Zealand Law Commission, the New Zealand government announced on 7 May 2007 that the sedition law would be repealed. The Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Act 2007 was passed on 24 October 2007, and entered into force on 1 January 2008.


title: Sedition

text: Russell Campbell made a documentary regarding conscientious objectors in New Zealand called "Sedition."


title: Sedition

text: Sedition was a common law offence in the UK. James Fitzjames Stephen's "Digest of the Criminal Law" stated that:


title: Sedition

text: Stephen in his "History of the Criminal Law of England" accepted the view that a seditious libel was nothing short of a direct incitement to disorder and violence. He stated that the modern view of the law was plainly and fully set out by Littledale J. in "Collins". In that case the jury were instructed that they could convict of seditious libel only if they were satisfied that the defendant "meant that the people should make use of physical force as their own resource to obtain justice, and meant to excite the people to take the power in to their own hands, and meant to excite them to tumult and disorder".


title: Sedition

text: The last prosecution for sedition in the United Kingdom was in 1972, when three people were charged with seditious conspiracy and uttering seditious words for attempting to recruit people to travel to Northern Ireland to fight in support of Republicans. The seditious conspiracy charge was dropped, but the men received suspended sentences for uttering seditious words and for offences against the Public Order Act 1936.


title: Sedition

text: In 1977, a Law Commission working paper recommended that the common law offence of sedition in England and Wales be abolished. They said that they thought that this offence was redundant and that it was not necessary to have any offence of sedition. However this proposal was not implemented until 2009, when sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010). Sedition by an alien is still an offence under section 3 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919.


title: Sedition

text: In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making with effect from 28 March 2011.


title: Sedition

text: The charge of seditious libel for true statements was weakened, but not abolished, in the 1735 New York case of "Crown v. John Peter Zenger". Zenger had published attacks on Governor William Cosby that were well received in the province. The Attorney General charged him by criminal information, bypassing the grand jury process, and Zenger was acquitted by a trial jury.


title: Sedition

text: President John Adams signed into law the Sedition Act of 1798, which set out punishments of up to two years of imprisonment for "opposing or resisting any law of the United States" or writing or publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the President or the U.S. Congress (though not the office of the Vice-President, then occupied by Adams' political opponent Thomas Jefferson). This Act of Congress was allowed to expire in 1801 after Jefferson's election to the Presidency; Jefferson pardoned those still serving sentences, and fines were repaid by the government. This law was never appealed to the United States Supreme Court (which had not yet established its power to invalidate laws passed by Congress granted in Marbury v. Madison) but opponents claimed it was unconstitutional under the First Amendment.


title: Sedition

text: In the Espionage Act of 1917, Section 3 made it a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000, to willfully spread false news of the United States Army or Navy with an intent to disrupt its operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting. This Act of Congress was amended by the Sedition Act of 1918, which expanded the scope of the Espionage Act to any statement criticizing the Government of the United States. These laws were upheld by the Supreme Court in the 1919 decisions "Schenck v. United States" (concerning distribution of flyers urging men to resist the draft) and "Abrams v. United States" (concerning leaflets urging cessation of weapons production). Schenck led to the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" explanation of the limits of free speech. The laws were largely repealed in 1921, leaving laws forbidding foreign espionage in the United States and allowing military censorship of sensitive material.


title: Sedition

text: In 1940, the Alien Registration Act, or "Smith Act", was passed, which made it a federal crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same. It was often used against communist party organizations. This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial. Also, a series of trials of 140 leaders of the Communist Party USA also relied upon the terms of the "Smith Act"—beginning in 1949—and lasting until 1957. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 11 CPUSA leaders in 1951 in "Dennis v. United States", that same Court reversed itself in 1957 in the case of "Yates v. United States", by ruling that teaching an ideal, no matter how harmful it may seem, does not equal advocating or planning its implementation. Although unused since at least 1961, the "Smith Act" remains a federal law.


title: Sedition

text: There was, however, a brief attempt to use the sedition laws, as defined by the Sedition Act of 1918 amendments to the Espionage Act of 1917, after socialist leagues in America distributed leaflets calling for resisting the draft. Those amendments were deemed incompatible with freedom of speech under American law, in spite of the exceptional circumstances that led to those laws, against protesters of the Vietnam War. On 17 October 1967, two demonstrators, while engaged in a sit-in at the Army Induction Center in Oakland, California, were arrested and charged with sedition by a deputy U.S. Marshal. U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole changed the charge to trespassing. Poole said, "three guys reaching up and touching the leg of an inductee, and that's conspiracy to commit sedition? That's ridiculous!" The marshals were in the process of stepping on the demonstrators as they attempted to enter the building, and the demonstrators were trying to protect themselves from the marshals' feet. Attorney Poole later added, "We'll decide what to prosecute, not marshals." This decision drew the ire of California Senator George Murphy, who would later block Poole's confirmation to a federal judgeship in response.


title: Sedition

text: In 1981, Oscar López Rivera, a Puerto Rican nationalist and Vietnam War veteran, was convicted and sentenced to 70 years in prison for seditious conspiracy (among other offenses) for his involvement in FALN - a Puerto Rican independence group that carried out over 130 bombings in the United States. Rivera was tried for being a recruiter and bomb-making trainer. In 1999, he was among the 16 Puerto Rican nationalists offered conditional clemency by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1999, but he rejected the offer. Then-Congressman, now Governor of Puerto Rico Pedro Pierluisi stated that "the primary reason that López Rivera did not accept the clemency offer extended to him in 1999 was because it had not also been extended to certain fellow Puerto Rico independence movement prisoners, including Mr. (Carlos Alberto) Torres". Torres was released from prison in July 2010. In January 2017, President Barack Obama commuted López Rivera's sentence; he was released May 2017, having served 36 years in prison.


title: Sedition

text: In 1987, fourteen white supremacists were indicted by a federal grand jury for seditious conspiracy between July 1983 and March 1985. Some alleged conspirators were serving time for overt acts, such as the crimes committed by The Order - bank robbery and the assassination of Alan Berg. Others, such as Louis Beam and Richard Butler, were charged for their speech seen as spurring on the overt acts by the others. In April 1988, a federal jury in Arkansas acquitted all the accused of charges of seditious conspiracy. Some still had to serve lengthy prison sentences on other charges, though one defendant, Glenn Miller, would later kill three people in shootings at Jewish community centers in 2014.


title: Sedition

text: On 1 October 1995, Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.


title: Sedition

text: Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico, was investigated for sedition in September 2005 after writing a letter to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms. Berg was represented by the ACLU. Charges were dropped in 2006.


title: Sedition

text: On 28 March 2010, nine members of the Hutaree Christian Patriot militia were arrested and charged with crimes including seditious conspiracy. In August 2012, U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts dismissed all serious charges against the remaining defendants, including sedition, and rebuked prosecutors for bringing the case. One man, Jacob Ward, was found not competent to stand trial. Three of the men, Joshua John Clough, David Brian Stone Sr., the leader of the group, and his son Joshua Stone, pleaded guilty to weapons charges.


title: Sedition

text: On 13 January 2022, eleven members or associates of the militia group Oath Keepers, including founder Stewart Rhodes, were charged with seditious conspiracy for their involvement with the 2021 United States Capitol attack.


title: Sedition

text: On 6 June, 2022, four members or associates of the militia group Proud Boys, including the former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, were indicted for seditious conspiracy for their involvement with the 2021 United States Capitol attack.


title: Sedition

text: ("incitement of the people") is a legal concept in Germany and some Nordic countries. It is sometimes loosely translated as sedition, although the law bans the incitement of hatred against a segment of the population such as a particular race or religion.


title: Sedition

text: After the 2017–18 Spanish constitutional crisis some of the leaders of the Catalan independence movement were charged with several criminal offences, notably rebellion and sedition. An offence similar to the Spanish offence of rebellion did not exist in Germany and the European Arrest Warrant against Carles Puigdemont was withdrawn, allowing him to remain in Belgium. Other leaders who were convicted of sedition received 9–13 years in prison as established in the Spanish Penal Code by a unanimous sentence of the Spanish Supreme Court during the October 2019 trial.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: On 10 January 2016, English musician David Bowie died at his Lafayette Street home in New York City, having suffered from liver cancer for 18 months. He died two days after the release of his twenty-sixth and final studio album, "Blackstar", which coincided with his 69th birthday.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie kept his illness private, and friends and fans alike were surprised by his death. Makeshift memorials were created in London, New York City, Berlin, and other cities in which Bowie had lived; sales of his albums and singles saw a significant increase. Numerous musicians and public figures also expressed their grief. Many commentators noted Bowie's impact on music, fashion and culture and wrote of his status as one of the most influential musical artists of all time.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie released his album "The Next Day" in early 2013 after having secretly recorded it over the previous two years, surprising fans and critics who had assumed that he had retired. Following its release, he went back into the studio to begin work on his next (and final) album, "Blackstar", also in secret. In June and July 2014, Bowie recorded his single "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" and around this time, Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer. He told only his family and people he was working with at the time about his condition; Ivo van Hove, with whom Bowie was collaborating on the off-Broadway musical "Lazarus", was told shortly after Bowie himself found out. Tony Visconti, Bowie's friend and producer of many Bowie albums, including "Blackstar", was told in January 2015. Visconti recalled that Bowie was completely bald from his chemotherapy when they spoke. Other musicians who worked with Bowie to record "Blackstar" said that, during recording, they did not know he was sick.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: By mid-2015, as the studio sessions for "Blackstar" were completed, it was hoped that the cancer was in remission, but by November 2015, around the time his single "Blackstar" was released, the cancer had spread throughout his body and Bowie was told by his doctors that his condition was terminal. He was in the middle of filming the video for his song "Lazarus" when the decision was made to end his cancer treatment. Bowie's last public appearance before his death was at the 7 December 2015 opening night of his musical "Lazarus". Bowie released his final studio album "Blackstar" on 8 January 2016, his 69th birthday. Bowie reportedly wrote a five-year plan for what he wanted done with his music after he died.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie died on 10 January 2016, and his Facebook page posted the message "Jan. 10, 2016 – David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer. While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family's privacy during their time of grief."


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Many musicians who had worked with Bowie over the years, such as Mike Garson, Gerry Leonard, Brian Eno, Nile Rodgers, Reeves Gabrels, Tina Turner, Iggy Pop, Sterling Campbell, Earl Slick and Gail Ann Dorsey, had not been told about his illness and were surprised when Bowie died.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: On 12 January 2016, in accordance with his will, Bowie was cremated in New Jersey, and his ashes were scattered in accordance with Buddhist rituals in Bali, Indonesia. Bowie had vacationed in Bali in the 1980s and had written the song "Tumble and Twirl" about his exploits there.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: "David Bowie Is" was a travelling museum show that displayed the history, artifacts and information about Bowie's life and works. The show, which ran from 2013 through 2018, was at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands when Bowie died, and as a result the museum considered cancelling the show, and there were also discussions as to whether to keep the name in the present tense (David Bowie "Is"). The decision was made instead to extend the show for 4 weeks to allow grieving fans to attend.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Memorials to Bowie were created around the world in the hours following his death. In Brixton, the London area in which Bowie was born, a mural painted in 2013 by Australian artist Jimmy C became a shrine at which fans left flowers, records and handwritten messages. The mural features Bowie as he appeared on his iconic "Aladdin Sane" album cover, with a red and blue stripe appearing diagonally across his face as if it had been painted upon it. In Berlin, fans left flowers outside the flat in which Bowie and Iggy Pop had lived while Bowie created his seminal "Berlin trilogy" of albums—"Low", "Heroes" and "Lodger"—in the late 1970s as well as Pop's albums "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life" (which Bowie produced). Flowers were also left outside Bowie's New York City apartment and next to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. In Milan, fans held a flash mob memorial service in Colonne di San Lorenzo while fans in Rio de Janeiro paid tribute to Bowie in February's Rio Carnival. In Japan, hours after Bowie's death, a devoted fan was detained for threatening to commit suicide with a box cutter in public.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Tony Visconti, who produced a number of Bowie's albums including the "Berlin trilogy", "Young Americans", and Bowie's final studio album, "Blackstar", wrote: "He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life—a work of art. He made "Blackstar" for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Mick Jagger said, "David was always an inspiration to me and a true original. He was wonderfully shameless in his work. We had so many good times together ... He was my friend. I will never forget him". Friend and collaborator Iggy Pop described him on social media as "the light of my life", while singer-songwriter Madonna tweeted: "Talented. Unique. Genius. Game Changer" and sang "Rebel, Rebel" at her Houston concert.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Queen, with whom he collaborated on "Under Pressure", tweeted a link to the video of the song, with the words: "This is our last dance..."


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Elton John commented that "we all know how inspiring he is. We all know that his music stands. We don't have to say anything about the music: it speaks for itself. He was innovative, he was boundary-changing, and he danced to his own tune—which in any artist is really rare". John also performed a cover of "Space Oddity" at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles two days after Bowie's death.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Kate Bush, noted for rarely giving public statements, told "The Guardian" in an interview: "David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode said, "I had seen the news but it wasn't until my wife told me he had died that I just broke down in tears. My daughter came out and they were both hugging me. It really affected me. I felt a huge gap. One of the things I was most regrettable about was that I had never really gone up to him at any time I'd seen him in passing and said, 'You know, David, I bump into you every once in a while, but I've never told you how much your music has meant to me and continues to mean to me.'"


title: Death of David Bowie

text: The Who honoured Bowie during their concert of 3 March 2016 at New York's Madison Square Garden with images of Bowie and noting "We'll miss our friend, a true icon of music and art, and a brilliant innovator."


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Debbie Harry said "Who doesn't love Bowie? A visionary artist, musician, actor, a completely renaissance man who has given us a long list of songs like 'Heroes,' 'Rebel Rebel,' 'Young Americans,' 'Diamond Dogs,' 'The Jean Genie,' and some memorable film performances like "The Man Who Fell to Earth", "Basquiat", "Labyrinth", "The Hunger". I can't say enough things about David Bowie to show how much I love him." Paul McCartney, meanwhile, shared a picture of him and Bowie together on Instagram and commented that "David was a great star and I treasure the moments we had together. His music played a very strong part in British musical history and I'm proud to think of the huge influence he has had on people all around the world".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bruce Springsteen commented "Over here on E Street, we're feeling the great loss of David Bowie. David was a visionary artist and an early supporter of our music. Always changing and ahead of the curve, he was an artist whose excellence you aspired to. He will be sorely missed." Bowie had previously recorded cover versions of Springsteen's songs "Growin' Up" and "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" early on in Springsteen's career. On the opening night of The River Tour 2016 in Pittsburgh on 16 January, Springsteen & the E Street Band opened their encore with a cover of "Rebel Rebel".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Yoko Ono noted Bowie's friendship with herself and John Lennon, and thanked him for being a "father figure" to her son Sean following Lennon's death.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: At the time of Bowie's death, his ex-wife Angie was competing as a housemate on the seventeenth season of "Celebrity Big Brother" in the United Kingdom. After the show's producers informed her of his death off camera, Angie returned to the house and confided in fellow housemate Tiffany Pollard, exclaiming "David's dead". Pollard however thought she was referring to David Gest, another housemate on the show who had been unwell for several days. Pollard became hysterical, resulting in other housemates going to check on Gest, who was in the bedroom asleep. Angie decided to voluntarily leave the house a week later, following Gest who had left for medical reasons two days earlier. Gest died three months later.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: British Prime Minister David Cameron paid tribute to Bowie, calling him "an immense British talent" and stating "musically, creatively, artistically, David Bowie was a genius".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: The German Foreign Office tweeted "Good-bye, David Bowie. You are now among #Heroes. Thank you for helping to bring down the #wall", referencing Bowie's as well as his 1987 concert near the Berlin wall.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Vatican Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi tweeted some of the words to Bowie's song "Space Oddity" in memoriam after Bowie's death.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Given the astronomical theme of several of his works, tributes came from numerous astronauts and astronomers, including Chris Hadfield and Neil deGrasse Tyson. NASA tweeted "The stars look very different today" from their Twitter account, directly quoting "Space Oddity".


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie's final album, "Blackstar"—styled as ★ on the cover—was heavily analysed following his death, and numerous supposed clues about Bowie's fate were discussed. The album's second single "Lazarus" includes the lyrics "Look up here, I'm in heaven/I've got scars that can't be seen", which appeared in numerous news publications after his death. The album's title was believed to have symbolised death; it is the name given to a cancerous lesion, as well as the term for the transitional state between a collapsed star and a singularity. It is reminiscent of "Black Star" (released as "Flaming Star" when the movie it was tied to was renamed), a song about death by one of Bowie's musical idols, Elvis Presley, which features the lyrics "When a man sees his black star, he knows his time has come". The video for "Lazarus" included visuals of Bowie retreating into a wooden cupboard, and writing with a skull on his desk—seemed to many to symbolise Bowie's imminent death.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Other lyrics were scrutinised; the track "Dollar Days", for example, featured the line, "Don't believe for just one second I'm forgetting you/I'm trying to/I'm dying to". The title and refrain of the album's final track, "I Can't Give Everything Away", was believed by some commentators to refer to Bowie keeping his imminent fate private whilst hinting at it throughout the album, while its use of the harmonica solo from "A New Career in a New Town"—an instrumental track on Bowie's 1977 album "Low" which refers to his move to Berlin—was considered a reference to Bowie beginning another new phase of his life.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Following Bowie's death, sales of his albums and singles soared. "Blackstar", already on track to claim the number one spot in the United Kingdom, accelerated in sales and stayed atop the albums chart for three weeks, as well as topping the "Billboard" 200 chart in the United States. "Blackstar" topped the album charts in 24 countries, including France, Germany and Italy, while it made the top 5 in a further six countries, including Japan and South Korea.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: In the United States, Bowie's combined album and song sales rose to 682,000 following his death, which was a rise of more than 5,000%. Another nine of his albums re-entered in the "Billboard" 200, including "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars", "Hunky Dory", "Let's Dance", "Aladdin Sane", "Low", and "The Next Day". On the "Billboard" Hot Rock Songs chart, Bowie broke the record for most entries by a single artist, with 21 songs.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: "Blackstar" was replaced at number one in the UK by his 2002 compilation "Best of Bowie", making Bowie the first artist to replace themselves atop the album chart since Michael Jackson did so following his death in 2009. In the week following his death, Bowie had 19 albums and 13 singles in the top 100 charts for both categories, with his 1977 single ""Heroes"" reaching a new peak of number 12. Bowie would later equal Elvis Presley's record for most albums in the top 40 at one time, with twelve.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: In France, David Bowie had three singles enter the top 10, including "Space Oddity" which peaked at number one and gave Bowie his first chart-topping single in the country. The Bowie compilation album "Nothing Has Changed" gained new peaks worldwide in countries where it had never made the top 10, rising to number one in New Zealand (where it spent four weeks), number three in Australia, number four in Austria and Germany, number five in Switzerland, number six in Netherlands, number seven in Hungary, and number nine in Italy. Global streams of Bowie's music on streaming service Spotify spiked by 2,822% after his death, while the singer occupied all ten of the top ten music videos on the iTunes video chart.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie was the biggest-selling vinyl artist of 2016 in the UK, with five albums in the vinyl Top 30, including "Blackstar" as the number one selling vinyl album of the year. BPI, who oversees the charts, noted that Bowie's album likely "would have sold in large volumes" even had Bowie not died.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Several artists performed songs by Bowie during concerts in the weeks following his death, including Elton John, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Numerous cities across the world also held events to remember Bowie. A concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City called The Music of David Bowie had already been announced, and was turned into a memorial event after news of his death broke; tickets sold out in two hours. A number of artists performed and paid tribute at a memorial event in London's Union Chapel six days after his death. Lady Gaga was chosen to perform a tribute to Bowie at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, which featured a medley of his songs such as "Space Oddity", "Changes", "Ziggy Stardust", "Fame", and "Let's Dance". In New Orleans, a large second line parade was led by the band Arcade Fire in the French Quarter. The event was held in February with fans packing the streets dressed in their Bowie-inspired attire. The rock band Phish performed Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" album in its entirety as their Halloween costume at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on 31 October 2016. Bowie was presented the Brits Icon award in February 2016, a few weeks after his death. Singer Annie Lennox paid tribute to Bowie at the presentation, singer Lorde performed "Life on Mars?" with Bowie's old touring band, Bowie's friend and actor Gary Oldman accepted the award on Bowie's behalf.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: The video game "", in which Bowie voiced characters, composed the soundtrack, and contributed to the story writing, was offered as a free download for a week following Bowie's death.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Bowie was included in the "In Memoriam" tribute at the 88th Academy Awards in a performance by Dave Grohl.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Lin-Manuel Miranda was writing songs for the Disney film "Moana" after Bowie died, and said "The world had already been mourning Bowie, I'd been listening to Bowie on a loop" and as a result wrote the song "Shiny" partially as a tribute to him.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Glenn Branca, whom Bowie had met and had referred to as an influence on his Tin Machine music, released "The Light (for David)" in 2016. Branca called Bowie "a kind of muse" and wrote the piece as a tribute to him.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: For a short time, the street sign for Bowie Street in Austin, Texas (named for Alamo hero Jim Bowie), was amended to read David Bowie Street.


title: Death of David Bowie

text: Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who toured with Bowie on the Outside Tour during its US leg and appeared in the music video for "I'm Afraid of Americans", produced a remix of "I Can't Give Everything Away" subtitled the "(Farewell Mix)" and performed it live on July 20, 2017.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Democratic backsliding, also called autocratization, is the decline in the democratic characteristics of a political system, and is the opposite of democratization. Democracy is the most popular form of government, with more than half of the nations in the world being democracies according to a study examining 165 countries determined that 98 of them were democracies in 2020. Since the 2010s, the world has grown more authoritarian, with one quarter of the world's population under democratically backsliding hybrid regimes into the 2020s.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Proposed causes of democratic backsliding include lack of public support for democracy, economic inequality and social tensions, populist or personalist politics, and external influence from great power politics. While regime change through military coups has declined since the end of the Cold War, more subtle forms of backsliding have increased. During the third wave of democratization in the late twentieth century, many new, weakly institutionalized democracies were established. Precisely these regimes are most vulnerable to democratic backsliding. The third wave of autocratization has been ongoing since 2010, when the number of liberal democracies was at an all-time high.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: In democracies, democratic decline results from the state-led weakening of political institutions that sustain the democratic system, such as the peaceful transition of power or free and fair elections. Although these political elements are assumed to lead to the onset of backsliding, the violation of individual rights that underpin democracy, especially freedom of expression, questions the health, efficiency and sustainability of democratic systems over time. During national crises, there are unique risks of democratic backsliding. It can occur when leaders impose autocratic rules during states of emergency that are either disproportionate to the severity of the crisis or remain in place after the situation has improved.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Democratic backsliding occurs when essential components of democracy are threatened. Examples of democratic backsliding include:


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Democratic backsliding can occur in several common ways. Backsliding is often led by democratically elected leaders, who use "incremental rather than revolutionary" tactics." As emphasized by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, it is difficult to pinpoint a single specific moment at which a government is no longer democratic, given that this process of decline manifests "slowly, in barely visible steps". Ozan Varol uses the phrase "stealth authoritarianism" to describe the practice of an authoritarian leader (or a potential authoritarian leader) using "seemingly legitimate legal mechanisms for anti-democratic ends ... concealing anti-democratic practices under the mask of law." Together with Juan Linz (1996), Levitsky and Ziblatt developed and agreed upon their "litmus test", which includes what they believe to be the four key indicators of authoritarian behavior. These four factors are: rejection (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game, denial of the legitimacy of political opponents, toleration or encouragement of violence, and readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media. Varol describes the manipulation of libel laws, electoral laws, or "terrorism" laws as tools to target or discredit political opponents, and the employment of democratic rhetoric as a distraction from anti-democratic practices, as manifestations of stealth authoritarianism. In addition to these key signs derived from the behavior of leaders, Samuel P. Huntington also describes culture as a main contributor to democratic backsliding, and goes on to argue that certain cultures are particularly hostile to democracy, but they don’t necessarily prohibit democratization.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: In a promissory coup, an incumbent elected government is deposed in a coup d'etat by coup leaders who claim to defend democracy and promise to hold elections to restore democracy. In these situations, coup-makers emphasize the temporary and necessary nature of their intervention in order to ensure democracy in the future. This is unlike the more open-ended coups that occurred during the Cold War. Political scientist Nancy Bermeo says that "The share of successful coups that falls into the promissory category has risen significantly, from 35 percent before 1990 to 85 percent afterward." Examining 12 promissory coups in democratic states between 1990 and 2012, Bermeo found that "Few promissory coups were followed quickly by competitive elections, and fewer still paved the way for improved democracies."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: This process contains a series of institutional changes by the elected executives, impairing the ability of the political opposition to challenge the government and hold it to account. The most important feature of executive aggrandizement is that the institutional changes are made through legal channels, making it seem as if the elected official has a democratic mandate. Some examples of executive aggrandizement are the decline of media freedom and the weakening of the rule of law (i.e., judicial and bureaucratic restraints on the government), such as when judicial autonomy is threatened.Over time, there has been a decline in active coups (in which a power-seeking individual, or small group, seizes power through forcibly, violently removing an existing government) and self-coups (involving "a freely elected chief executive suspending the constitution outright in order to amass power in one swift sweep") and an increase in "executive aggrandizement". Political scientist Nancy Bermeo notes that executive aggrandizement occurs over time, through institutional changes legitimized through legal means, such as new constituent assemblies, referendums, or "existing courts or legislatures ... in cases where supporters of the executive gain majority control of such bodies." Bermeo notes that these methods mean that the aggrandizement of the executive "can be framed as having resulted from a democratic mandate." Executive aggrandizement is characterized by the presence of distress in axes of democracy, including institutional or horizontal accountability; and executive or discursive accountability.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: This form of democratic backsliding entails the subversion of free and fair elections by, for example, blocking media access, disqualifying opposition candidates and voter suppression. This form of backsliding typically takes place before Election Day and now tends to be done in a slower and more incremental way that the changes may even seem not urgent to counter, making it tougher for watchdogs like the media to find and broadcast the cumulative threat of all the mostly small, but significant misconducts. While the accumulation of power is more likely to start with this slower linear progression, it can accelerate once voter power seems too divided or weakened to repair all the damage done to institutions.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Pippa Norris of the Harvard Kennedy School and the University of Sydney argues that the two "twin forces" pose the largest threat to Western liberal democracies: "sporadic and random terrorist attacks on domestic soil, which damage feelings of security, and the rise of populist-authoritarian forces, which feed parasitically upon these fears." Norris defines populism as "a governing style with three defining features":


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Some, but not all, populists are also authoritarian, emphasizing "the importance of protecting traditional lifestyles against perceived threats from 'outsiders', even at the expense of civil liberties and minority rights." According to Norris, the reinforcement of the insecurities from the "twin forces" has led to more support for populist-authoritarian leaders, and this latter risk was especially pronounced in the United States during the presidency of Donald Trump. For example, Norris argues that Trump benefited from the mistrust of "the establishment" and that he continuously sought to undermine faith in the legitimacy of the media and the independence of the courts.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Populism does not have the same effect in each stage of the democratization process. In fact, we suggest that populism tends to play a positive role in the promotion of electoral or minimal democracy, but a negative role when it comes to fostering the development of a full-fledged liberal democratic regime. Consequently, while populism tends to favor the democratization of authoritarian regimes, it is prone to diminish the quality of liberal democracies. Populism supports popular sovereignty, but it is inclined to oppose any limitations on majority rule, such as judicial independence and minority rights. Populism-in-power has led to processes of de-democratization (e.g., [Viktor] Orbán in Hungary or [Hugo] Chávez in Venezuela) and, in some extreme cases, even to the breakdown of the democratic regime (e.g., [Alberto] Fujimori in Peru).


title: Democratic backsliding

text: A 2018 analysis by political scientists Yascha Mounk and Jordan Kyle links populism to democratic backsliding, showing that since 1990, "13 right-wing populist governments have been elected; of these, five brought about significant democratic backsliding. Over the same time period, 15 left-wing populist governments were elected; of these, the same number, five, brought about significant democratic backsliding."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: A December 2018 report by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change concluded that populist rule, whether left- or right-wing, leads to a significant risk of democratic backsliding. The authors examine the effect of populism on three major aspects of democracy: the quality of democracy in general, checks and balances on executive power and citizens' right to politically participate in a meaningful way. They conclude that populist governments are four times more likely to cause harm to democratic institutions than non-populist governments. Also, more than half of populist leaders have amended or rewritten the countries' constitution, frequently in a way that eroded checks and balances on executive power. Lastly, populists attack individual rights such as freedom of the press, civil liberties, and political rights.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: In a 2018 journal article on democratic backsliding, scholars Licia Cianetti, James Dawson, and Seán Hanley argued that the emergence of populist movements in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Andrej Babiš's ANO in the Czech Republic, are "a potentially ambiguous phenomenon, articulating genuine societal demands for political reform and pushing issues of good governance centre stage, but further loosening the weak checks and balances that characterise post-communist democracy and embedding private interests at the core of the state."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: In a 2019 paper, presented to the International Society of Political Psychologists, Shawn Rosenberg argues that right-wing populism is exposing a vulnerability in democratic structures and that "democracy is likely to devour itself."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Many political economy scholars, such as Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, have investigated the effect of income inequality on the democratic breakdown. Studies of democratic collapse show that economic inequality is significantly higher in countries that eventually move towards a more authoritarian model. Hungary is an example of a country where a large group of unemployed, low-educated people were dissatisfied with the high levels of inequality, especially after the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Viktor Orbán used this dissatisfaction of a relatively large segment of the population to his advantage, winning popular support by using national-populist rhetoric.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: A 2019 study found that personalism had an adverse impact on democracy in Latin America: "presidents who dominate their own weakly organized parties are more likely to seek to concentrate power, undermine horizontal accountability, and trample the rule of law than presidents who preside over parties that have an independent leadership and an institutionalized bureaucracy."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Many national governments worldwide delayed, postponed or canceled a variety of democratic elections at both national and subnational governmental levels resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic opening gaps in the action of democracy.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: According to the V-Dem Institute, only 39% of all countries have committed no or minor violations of democratic standards in response to COVID-19. Regardless of the fact that liberal democracy was on the defensive and experiencing a rise of autocrats and authoritarian regimes in many parts of the world prior to the first coronavirus death in December 2019, the pandemic has had a major influence on democratic backsliding.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Great power transitions have contributed to democratic backsliding and the spread of authoritarianism in two ways: "First, the sudden rise of autocratic Great Powers led to waves of autocracy driven by conquest but also by self-interest and even admiration, as in the fascist wave of the 1930s or the post-1945 communist wave. Second, the sudden rise of democratic hegemons led to waves of democratization, but these waves inevitably overextended and collapsed, leading to failed consolidation and rollback."


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Global variation in democracy is primarily explained by variance between popular adherence to authoritarian values vs. emancipative values, which explains around 70 percent of the variation of democracy between countries every year since 1960. Emancipative values, as measured by the World Values Survey, have been consistently rising over time in response to increasing economic prosperity.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: A 2020 study, which used World Values Survey data, found that cultural conservatism was the ideological group most open to authoritarian governance within Western democracies. Within English-speaking Western democracies, "protection-based" attitudes combining cultural conservatism and leftist economic attitudes were the strongest predictor of support for authoritarian modes of governance.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Professor Jessica Stern and the political psychologist Karen Stenner write that international research finds that "perceptions of sociocultural threat" (such as rising ethnic diversity, tolerance for LGBT people) are more important in explaining how democracies turn authoritarian compared to economic inequality (though they include economic threats such as globalization and the rising prosperity of other ethnic groups). Stern and Stenner say about a third of the population in Western countries is predisposed to favor homogeneity, obedience, and strong leaders over diversity and freedom. In their view, authoritarianism is only loosely correlated with conservatism, which may defend a liberal democracy as the status quo.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Political scientist Christian Welzel argues that the third wave of democratization overshot the demand for democracy in some countries. Therefore, Welzel sees the current autocratization trend as regression to the mean, but expects that it too will reverse in response to long-term changes in values.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: The 2019 Annual Democracy Report of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg identified three challenges confronting global democracy: (1) "Government manipulation of media, civil society, rule of law, and elections"; (2) rising "toxic polarization", including "the division of society into distrustful, antagonistic camps"; diminishing "respect for opponents, factual reasoning, and engagement with society" among political elites; and increasing use of hate speech by political leaders; and (3) foreign disinformation campaigns, primarily digital, and mostly affecting Taiwan, the United States, and former Soviet bloc nations such as Latvia.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: According to Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman, four characteristics have typically provided the conditions for democratic backsliding (alone or in combination): Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power. Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman highlight three key causes of backsliding: "the pernicious effects of polarization; realignments of party systems that enable elected autocrats to gain legislative power; and the incremental nature of derogations, which divides oppositions and keeps them off balance." A 2022 study linked polarization to support for undemocratic politicians.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: A study by the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem) of the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg, which contains more than eighteen-million data points relevant to democracy, measuring 350 highly specific indicators across 174 countries as of the end of 2016, found that the number of democracies in the world modestly declined from 100 in 2011 to 97 in 2017; some countries moved toward democracy, while other countries moved away from democracy. V-Dem's 2019 Annual Democracy Report found that the trend of autocratization continued, while "24 countries are now severely affected by what is established as a 'third wave of autocratization'" including "populous countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh and the United States, as well as several Eastern European countries" (specifically Bulgaria and Serbia). The report found that an increasing proportion of the world population lived in countries undergoing autocratization (2.3 billion in 2018). The report found that while the majority of countries were democracies, the number of liberal democracies declined to 39 by 2018 (down from 44 a decade earlier). The research group Freedom House, in reports in 2017 and 2019, identified democratic backsliding in a variety of regions across the world. Freedom House's 2019 "Freedom in the World" report, titled "Democracy in Retreat", showed freedom of expression declining each year over the preceding 13 years, with sharper drops since 2012.


title: Democratic backsliding

text: Scholarly work in the 2010s detailed democratic backsliding, in various forms and to various extents, in Hungary and Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, and India. The scholarly recognition of the concept of democratic backsliding reflects a reversal from older views, which held "that democracy, once attained in a fairly wealthy state, would become a permanent fixture." This older view came to be realized as erroneous beginning in the mid-2000s, as multiple scholars acknowledged that some seemingly-stable democracies have recently faced a decline in the quality of their democracy. Huq and Ginsburg identified in an academic paper "37 instances in 25 different countries in the postwar period in which democratic quality declined significantly (though a fully authoritarian regime didn't emerge)", including countries that were "seemingly stable, reasonably wealthy" democracies.