Soviet eco-activism exposed state rot – but it also provided the networks, platforms and experience for ordinary people to become anti-authoritarian campaigners.

With El Salvador’s disturbing prison deal with the US in the spotlight, Lya Cuéllar takes a look back at how her country has fared under the self-styled “World’s Coolest Dictator.”

Amid a harsh government clapdown on opposing voices in Egypt, exiled opposition figures are challenging state-imposed narratives from abroad – and impacting politics back home.

As so often in war, men led Liberia’s armed fractions, and women tended to suffer its most severe consequences. But when an interfaith group decided enough was enough, they proved that women don’t have to command armies or hold political office to change the course of history.

Forty years after the fall of Uruguay’s military dictatorship, the families of the disappeared are still demanding answers. Slowly but surely – through alliances that span politics, forensics, law, history and anthropology – they are casting light into the darkest recesses of their country’s past, in hope of a brighter future.

For more than a decade, families have accused the Bangladeshi state of abducting their loved ones and tirelessly campaigned for justice. Now, a new administration is finally acknowledging their pain.