Women in autocracies often seem like the regime’s showcase figures. Whether it is patriotic breast implants or pastel dresses as a sign of evangelical modesty, their appearance conveys political messages that can hardly be stated openly. A text about female power in the service of unfreedom.

An Escape is meant to bring people from danger to safety. For queer and trans Afghans, however, it does not. Instead, it leads them from Taliban rule to familial control, to regional deportation regimes, to bureaucratic indifference—a chain without any moment of arrival.

An analysis by CORRECTIV.Europe reveals for the first time how widespread drought has become across Europe. Two-thirds of all regions have recorded severe drought years since 2012.

It is not a secret weapon or a military tactic. It is a law — bureaucratic, dull, and devastatingly effective. Russia’s 2012 foreign agent legislation gave autocrats everywhere a template for dismantling civil society while keeping their hands seemingly clean.

Europol is aiming to become a powerful police force with far-reaching surveillance powers. But in an attempt to deliver in the fight against serious cross-border crime, the agency has apparently gone rogue itself, this investigation reveals: Secret data analysis platforms have put innocent citizens at risk, an issue that remains unresolved today.

For weeks, a wave of attacks has been targeting Signal users in Germany and abroad. Among those targeted are security officials, politicians, and journalists. A CORRECTIV investigation found digital evidence pointing to Russian involvement in the campaign – and a connection to previous attacks in Ukraine and Moldova.

Germany’s transformation into a military power is in full swing: confidential government documents reveal plans to channel billions into ammunition and controversial weapons systems. Is the country prepared for the consequences?

Democracy is not dying by sudden coup – it is being dismantled through the law itself, using a shared playbook refined across continents.

Democracy is not dying by sudden coup – it is being dismantled through the law itself, using a shared playbook refined across continents.

In this article series, we take a second look at current events in countries that often remain only briefly spotlighted in German reporting. Together with local experts, we ask: What political and social developments lie behind the current events that we see in the news? What does this mean for democracy and media freedom? With our exile expertise, we want to reveal global connections and understand what we can learn from this for free, democratic coexistence. In this episode, Azerbaijani journalist Fatima Karimova writes about the repression of media workers in her homeland and why the European Union repeatedly turns a blind eye to it.

Crooked deals with waste are just as lucrative to drug deals – only easier to conceal. An investigation by CORRECTIV.Europe shows how two companies from Germany and Czechia are making hundreds of thousands of tonnes of debris disappear just behind the border.