Tyrant of the year 2025: Narendra Modi
India has been called the world’s largest democracy but under Narendra Modi that label might need an update. Threats to free speech in India have intensified dramatically.
Whether through internet shutdowns and blocks, the weaponisation of the heckler’s veto which allows groups and individuals - including members of the far-right Hindutva movement - to secure the censorship of content they disagree with, or plans to expand regulatory powers to criminalise speech.
In the aftermath of April’s deadly Pahalgam attack in Indian administered Kashmir in which 26 people, mostly tourists were killed, Modi’s government blocked 16 Pakistani YouTube channels and restricted access to the social media pages of prominent Pakistani news organisations. The government also also blocked the respected Indian news website, The Wire. But Modi was not content just with attacking the media. According to Assam’s Chief Minister, as of 7 June, 90 people were arrested as part of a crackdown on "anti-national and communal elements", which included arrests based on social media content that was deemed to be “pro-Pakistan”. This was not limited to one state. The singer Neha Singh Rathore and social media influencer Dr Medusa were both booked on charges, including sedition, for social media comments made in relation to the government’s response to the attacks.
Modi’s government has long seen the control of online speech as a guarantor of political dominance, both for their party and their belief in India as a Hindu nation. So by that measure 2025 has been a great success. Yes, the arrests related to the Pahalgam attacks have slowed, but the foundations for all speech remain fragile.
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The closing date is Monday 5 January 2026.
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, has been the country’s leader for 36 years, so tyranny is in his blood. His years of perfecting autocracy were on full display following the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini at the hands of the “morality police” in 2022 and the Woman, Life, Freedom protests that followed. His regime enforced a sharp crackdown on his opponents, many of whom were rounded up and jailed. But it’s not just views on feminism that anger the Ayatollah. This year thousands of lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders who spoke up during the Israel-Iran conflict were also arrested.
Israel once boasted it was the only democracy in the Middle East. But in the last year the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accelerated attempts to erode democratic institutions. So dire is the situation that US political scientist Steven Levitsky, a leading expert on democracy, declared this year that 
Is John Lee closing out 2025 in disaster or triumph? His harsh response to November’s tragic fire suggests the latter, at least on the surface. After years spent further tightening Hong Kong’s freedoms under the 2020 National Security Law, he seemed to seize the moment. Much quieter outrage from Hong Kong’s now incredibly beleaguered civil society? Tick. Media coverage now largely aligned with the government narrative and fixated on the role of bamboo? Tick. A heavy-handed crackdown on the few who dared to speak out, including petitions shut down, conferences targeted and organisers arrested? Tick, tick, tick. Even foreign journalists, once relatively insulated from the city’s authoritarian drift, found themselves threatened over how they reported on the fire.